Prologue: Bhavani and Her Sisters

From age 8 to 10, Bhavani
spent two years locked up in Bangkok’s squalid, overcrowded Immigration
Detention Center (IDC). She and her family, refugees from Sri Lanka, were
detained because Thailand’s immigration laws precluded them from gaining
legal status and protection in the country.

Bhavani is the youngest of six
children. She was living in hiding in Bangkok with her mother, father, three
sisters, and the younger of her two brothers. Early one morning when her mother
and brother were out, the police raided the apartment, apprehended Bhavani, her
father, and her sisters, and sent them to the Bangkok IDC. Her older brother
had already been detained there for over a year, and even though they had not
been able to see him—they lacked any paperwork that would let them visit—the
family had some idea of the harsh conditions inside.

When Bhavani’s mother,
Mathy, learned that her husband and daughters had been arrested, she was
shocked. “I just thought I should surrender,” she told Human
Rights Watch. “I wasn’t able to leave four of my girls in the IDC
alone.” Mathy voluntarily reported to a court, where the judge ordered
her to pay a 6,000 baht (about US$200) fine for being in the country without a
visa, then let her surrender and join her daughters in the IDC. In the two days
they were apart, Mathy said, “I felt like I was dreaming. I wasn’t
able to sleep, I’d hear them talking like they were calling me, knocking
at the door.”

When the sisters and their
father reached the IDC—two days before Mathy arrived—the police
separated the girls from their father and sent them to different holding cells.
The girls were initially held in a large hall with many adults. “When
they took our dad away from us, we started to cry. That’s when I realized
we couldn’t get out of there,” said Amanthi, Bhavani’s
sister, who was 12 at the time. “When I saw them there,” said
Mathy, “I was so scared.”

After a few days, Mathy and
her four daughters were moved to the cell where they would spend the next two
years. The cell was overcrowded, sometimes with over 100 occupants. People were
“sleeping all on top of each other, so crowded even right up to the toilet,”
said Amanthi. “At some point we couldn’t sit.” Mathy said she
coped as best she could, but “One of my sons was never arrested. It was
really difficult. I wanted to be in the IDC with my girls, but I missed my
second son.” He could not visit without risking arrest himself.

Because of the detention
center’s policy of holding males in one cell and females in another,
without chances to visit, the family was separated, despite being in the same
facility. They were only brought together when a charity group visited once or
twice per month and asked to see the whole family. “When Bhavani wanted
to meet my dad or brother,” said Amanthi, “she’d really cry.”

Crammed in their cigarette smoke-filled,
fetid permanent cell, the girls saw their health and education suffer. Bhavani
developed a rash all over her body, but Mathy said the medication the
IDC’s clinic gave her did not help. The toilets—just three for the
hundred or so migrants held there—were filthy, and Bhavani’s
teenage sister avoided using them because there were no doors. Though the
International Organization for Migration ran a small daycare center that the
girls could attend once or twice a week, there was no school. “I worried that
my girls’ education stopped,” said Mathy.

Fights often broke out between
women in the overcrowded cell, frustrated by their indefinite detention. “When
someone behaved badly to other people, I didn’t like that,” said
Bhavani. “They would shout at night.” The guards would not do very
much when fighting started, and the girls would hide, explained Amanthi. “The
[other migrants] are really, really strong. My mom didn’t know how to
fight, she tried to take us to a corner and protect us. It was scary.”

Detained without release in
sight, the family members slowly found ways to cope. “The first three to
four months was really hard,” said Mathy. “It was difficult to
manage and take care of my girls. I got used to it. We met people who had more
problems than us.” Bhavani became friends with a Sri Lankan boy and girl
detained with her. Their mothers would carve out a small space for them to
play, defending the area against encroachment from others in the overcrowded
cell.

Bhavani and her family were
finally released on bail in the process of being resettled as refugees to the
United States. Yet Bhavani, who had spent one fifth of her life in detention,
had become accustomed to life in the IDC. When the family finally left, “I
was so sad I had to leave my friends,” she said. “I knew they
wouldn’t be coming out too.”

Now, living safely in the US,
Bhavani has not seen her father in over a year. He was not cleared for
resettlement alongside his wife and children, and, despite the risk of
persecution, chose to return to Sri Lanka rather than remain in the IDC. The
family decided that splitting up was the only way to get their children out of
detention and back to regular education. Mathy still worries about the 20 or so
other children left behind in her cell in the IDC: “Their education,
their health, their future is spoiled.”

Summary

Every year, Thailand
arbitrarily detains thousands of children, from infants and toddlers and older,
in squalid immigration facilities and police lock-ups. Around 100
children—primarily from countries that do not border Thailand—may
be held for months or years. Thousands more children—from
Thailand’s neighboring countries—spend less time in this abusive
system because Thailand summarily deports them and their families to their home
countries relatively quickly. For them, detention tends to last only days or
weeks.

But no matter how long the
period of detention, these facilities are no place for children.

Drawing on more than 100
interviews, including with 41 migrant children, documenting conditions for
refugees and other migrants in Thailand, this report focuses on how the Thai
government fails to uphold migrants’ rights, describing the needless
suffering and permanent harm that children experience in immigration detention.
It examines the abusive conditions children endure in detention centers,
particularly in the Bangkok Immigration Detention Center (IDC), one of the most
heavily used facilities in Thailand.

This report shows that
Thailand indefinitely detains children due to their own immigration status or
that of their parents. Thailand’s use of immigration detention violates
children’s rights, immediately risks their health and wellbeing, and
imperils their development. Wretched conditions place children in filthy,
overcrowded cells without adequate nutrition, education, or exercise space.
Prolonged detention deprives children of the capacity to mentally and
physically grow and thrive.

In 2013, the Committee on the
Rights of the Child, the body of independent experts charged with interpreting
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Thailand is party, directed
governments to “expeditiously and completely cease the detention of
children on the basis of their immigration status,” asserting that such
detention is never in the child’s best interest.

***

Immigration detention in
Thailand violates the rights of both adults and children. Migrants are often
detained indefinitely; they lack reliable mechanisms to appeal their
deprivation of liberty; and information about the duration of their detention is
often not released to members of their family. Such indefinite detention
without recourse to judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention prohibited
under international law.

Thailand requires many of
those detained to pay their own costs of repatriation and leaves them to languish
indefinitely in what are effectively debtors’ prisons until those
payments can be made. Refugee families face the unimaginable choice of
remaining locked up indefinitely with their children, waiting for the slim
chance of resettlement in a third country, or paying for their own return to a
country where they fear persecution. Many refugees spend years in detention.

Immigration detention,
particularly when arbitrary or indefinite, can be brutal for even resilient
adults. But the potential mental and physical damage to children, who are still
growing, is particularly great.

Immigration detention
negatively impacts children’s mental health by exacerbating previous
traumas (such as those experienced by children fleeing repression in their home
country) and contributing to lasting depression and anxiety. Without adequate
education or stimulation, children’s social and intellectual development
is stymied. None of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed in Thailand
received a formal education in detention. Cindy Y., for example, was three
years older than her classmates in school when she was finally released. She
said, “I feel ashamed that I’m the oldest and studying with the
younger ones.”

Detention also imperils
children’s physical health. Children held in Thailand’s immigration
detention facilities rarely get the nutrition or physical exercise they need.
Children are crammed into packed cells, with limited or no access to space for
recreation. Doug Y. wanted to play football, his favorite sport, but said, “If
you kick a ball, you’d hit someone, or a little kid.” Parents
described having to pay exorbitant prices for supplemental food smuggled from
outside sources to try to provide for their children’s nutritional needs.
Labaan T., a Somali refugee detained with his 3-year-old son, said, “The
diet for the boy consists of the same rice that everybody else eats. He needs
fruits which are neither provided nor available for purchase.”

The bare and brutal existence
for children in detention is exacerbated by the squalid conditions. Leander P.,
an adult American who was detained in the Bangkok IDC, said that one of the two
available toilets in his cell, occupied by around 80 people, was permanently
clogged, so “someone had drilled a hole in the side – what would
have gone down just drained onto the floor.” Multiple children we
interviewed described cells so crowded they had to sleep sitting up.

Even where children have room
to lie down and sleep, they routinely reported sleeping on tile or wood floors,
without mattresses or blankets. “The floor was made from wood, the wood
was broken and the water came in,” said one refugee woman detained for
months in the Chiang Mai IDC with a friend and the friend’s 6 and 8 year-olds.
“While I was sleeping, a rat bit my face.”

Severe overcrowding appears to
be a chronic problem in many of Thailand’s immigration detention centers.
The Thai government detained hundreds of ethnic Rohingya refugees, including
unaccompanied children, in the Phang Nga IDC in 2013. Television footage showed
nearly 300 men and boys detained in two cells resembling large cages, each
designed to hold only 15 men, with barely enough room to sit. Eight Rohingya
men died from illness while detained in extreme heat with lack of medical care
in the immigration detention centers that year.

Children are routinely held
with unrelated adults in violation of international law, where they are exposed
to violence between those detained and from guards. A Sri Lankan refugee,
Arpana B., was pregnant and detained in an overcrowded cell in the Bangkok IDC
with her small daughter in 2011. “One of the detainees beat my daughter,”
she said. “He was crazy. There was no guard, no police to help us.”

Thailand faces numerous
migration challenges posed by its geographical location and relative wealth,
and is entitled to control its borders. But it should do so in a way that
upholds basic human rights, including the right to freedom from arbitrary detention,
the right to family unity, and international minimum standards for conditions
of detention. Instead, Thailand’s current policies violate its
international legal obligations, put children at unnecessary risk, and ignore
widely held medical opinion about the detrimental effect that detention can
have on the still-developing bodies and minds of children.

Alternatives to detention
exist and are used effectively in other countries, such as open reception
centers and conditional release programs. Such programs are a cheaper option, respect
children’s rights, and protect their future. The Philippines, for
instance, operates a conditional release system through which refugees and
other vulnerable migrants are issued with documentation and required to register
periodically.

Children should not be forced
to lose parts of their childhood in immigration detention. Given the serious
risks of permanent harm from depriving children of liberty, Thailand should
immediately cease detention of children for reasons of their immigration
status.

Key Recommendations to the Thai Government

Enact legislation and policies
to expeditiously end immigration detention of children consistent with the
recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Adopt alternatives to
detention, including supervised release and open centers that fulfill the best
interests of the child and allow children to remain with their family members
or guardians in non-custodial, community-based settings while their immigration
status is being resolved.

Until children are no longer
detained, ensure that their detention is neither arbitrary nor indefinite, and
that they and their families are able to challenge their detention in a timely
manner.

Drastically improve conditions
in Immigration Detention Centers and any other facilities that hold migrant
children in line with international standards, including by providing access to
adequate education and health care and maintaining family unity.

Sign and ratify the 1951
Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

Methodology

This report builds on two
previous Human Rights Watch reports that examined Thailand’s treatment of
migrants: Ad Hoc and Inadequate: Thailand’s Treatment of Refugees and
Asylum Seekers (2012), and From the Tiger to the Crocodile: Abuse of Migrant
Workers in Thailand (2010).

The report is based on 105
interviews conducted between June and October 2013, of people detained,
arrested, or otherwise affected by interactions with police and immigration
officials in Thailand. This report also uses an additional nine interviews,
collected between September 2008 and October 2011 in the course of researching
previous reports that refer to issues still relevant today. Interviewees
ranged in age from 6 to 48, plus a grandmother who did not know her age.
Fifty-five of the migrants interviewed were female. The majority of migrants
interviewed were Burmese (including Rohingya); the next largest source country
was Cambodia; and the remainder were from China, Nepal, Pakistan, Somalia, Sri
Lanka, and the United States.

Forty-one of the interviewees
were migrant children under the age of 18. Five others were adults under the
age of 23 at the time of their interview who related experiences that occurred
when they were children. We interviewed 10 adults who were parents of, related
to, or had spent significant time detained with children below the age of 5.

We conducted some interviews
in English and in Urdu, and others through the use of interpreters in a
language in which the interviewee was comfortable, such as Rohingya, Burmese,
Thai, or Khmer. We explained to all interviewees the nature of our research and
our intentions concerning the information gathered, and we obtained oral
consent from each interviewee.

Most interviews took place in Thailand,
including in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Mae Sot, Phang Nga, Ranong, and Samut Sakhon.
We also interviewed, in their home country or in a third country, nine migrants
and refugees who had been detained in Thailand. Most of these interviews took
place in person; one took place by videoconference.

Most interviews were conducted
individually and privately; this included extensive, detailed conversations
with released detainees. In addition, Human Rights Watch researchers visited
several immigration detention facilities and conducted group interviews with
two or three of those detained at a time. In order to safeguard interviewees
who were detained, our conversations took place outside the hearing of
immigration staff.

Human Rights Watch researchers
met eight government officials concerned with migration who worked for the
police, immigration department, and the Ministry of Social Development and
Human Security. We also sent letters requesting data and other
information concerning immigration and detention in Thailand, on January 18,
2014, to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Immigration Division, the
Minister of Social Development and Human Security, and the Thai ambassadors to
the United States and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York. Although
we received a letter from the office of the ambassador to the UN in Geneva
acknowledging receipt of our letter, the office did not provide any answers to
the questions we raised. We also sent a summary of our findings, and requested
comment on July 15, 2014, to the ministries of foreign affairs and interior,
and the Thailand mission to the United Nations in New York. The mission
responded on August 14, 2014, and both our letter and their response are
included as an annex to this report.

In addition, we met with
representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
the International Organization for Migration (IOM), officials of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), migrant community leaders, journalists, human
rights lawyers, and activists.

All names of migrants
interviewed, including those of all children, have been replaced by pseudonyms
to protect their identity. Pseudonyms used may not match the country of origin.
In cases where the interviewee was concerned about the possibility of reprisal,
we have concealed the location of the interview or withheld precise details of
the migrant’s case. Many staff members of government agencies,
intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs in Thailand are not identified at
their request.

Human Rights Watch did not
assess whether the migrants we spoke to qualified for refugee status. Some,
perhaps many, do. This report instead focuses on how the Thai government fails
to uphold migrants’ human rights, regardless of whether or not those
migrants have legitimate asylum claims or other protection needs.

On May 22, 2014, the Thai military
took control of the government. Although the
research for this report was completed prior to the coup, its findings remain
relevant. The military government,
known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), has instituted no major policy changes regarding
detention of migrant children. Thailand’s policy of detaining migrants has remained consistent
across previous governments, including military governments.

Terminology

This report focuses on
migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in urban centers in Thailand. Most
non-Burmese asylum seekers lodge refugee claims directly with UNHCR because
Thailand is not party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
(the 1951 Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol, has no procedure for
determining refugee status for urban asylum seekers, and has made no commitment
to provide permanent asylum. UNHCR recognizes some as refugees but has no
authority to grant asylum. The Thai authorities do not allow UNHCR to conduct
refugee status determinations for members of certain nationalities, including Burmese,
Lao Hmong, and North Koreans.

An “asylum seeker”
is a person who is trying to be recognized as a refugee or to establish a claim
for protection on other grounds. Where we are confident that a person is
seeking protection we will refer to that person as an asylum seeker. A “refugee,”
as defined in the Refugee Convention, is a person with a “well-founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion” who is outside their
country of nationality and is unable or unwilling, because of that fear, to
return. In this report, we use the term “refugee” when that person
has been recognized as a refugee by UNHCR in Thailand, though it should be
noted that UNHCR recognition of refugee status is declaratory, which means that
people are, in fact, refugees before they have been officially recognized as
such.

In this report, “migrant”
is a broad term used to describe foreign nationals in Thailand, including
people traveling in and through Thailand and passengers on boats moving
irregularly. The use of the term “migrant” does not exclude the
possibility that a person may be an asylum seeker or refugee.

In line with international
law, the term “child” as used in this report refers to a person
under the age of 18,[1] including
children traveling with their families and unaccompanied migrant children. This
report discusses these groups separately and together, and uses the term “migrant
children” to refer to them together. This term includes children who are
seeking asylum or have been granted refugee certificates from UNHCR.

For the purposes of this
report, we use the definition of “unaccompanied migrant child” from
the term “unaccompanied child” employed by the Committee on the
Rights of the Child: “Unaccompanied children” are children, as
defined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, “who have been
separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by
an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so.”[2]

I. Paths to Immigration Detention

There are approximately
375,000 migrant children in Thailand, including children who work, children of
migrant workers, and refugee and asylum-seeking children.[3]
Children constitute around 11 percent of Thailand’s total migrant
population of 3.4 million people.[4]

Under Thai law, all migrants
with irregular immigration status, even children, can be arrested and detained.[5]
Immigration authorities and police arrest migrants while they are working, at
markets, or as they travel within the country or seek to cross borders.[6]

Migrants of all nationalities
who are arrested—and as a practical matter unable to pay bribes—are
likely to be taken to police lock-ups or Immigration Detention Centers (IDCs).[7]

Those from countries bordering
Thailand tend to spend a few days or weeks in detention before they are taken
to the border to be deported or otherwise released. Nationals from countries
that do not border Thailand, however, can spend years in indefinite detention,
being essentially held until they can pay for their own removal.[8]
Refugees can be held until they are resettled to a third country, an unlikely
outcome for many refugees; and the relatively few who are resettled often spend
many months, sometimes years, in detention prior to their resettlement.

Arrests of Migrant Workers
and their Children

Thousands of migrant workers
cross into Thailand each year from the neighboring countries of Burma,
Cambodia, and Laos. Particularly those who remain unregistered with the Thai
government face constant risk of arrest. These migrant workers make up a
significant proportion of the workforce in Thailand.[9]Some bring children with them, and some give birth to children in
Thailand. Infants stay in the migrant workers’ camps or in other homes
with relatives, and young children attend informal schools in migrant
communities. Many migrant children start working around 13, 14, or 15 years
old.

Prior to the military coup of 2014, Thailand had made some
progress toward regularizing migrant workers, but the process of applying for
and gaining migrant worker status remained prohibitively expensive for many
workers.

After the military coup, large
numbers of Cambodian migrant workers left Thailand in
response to rumors of migrants being arrested and harassed.[10]
In just 18 days between June 8 and 25, at least 246,000 Cambodians fled
the country, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).[11]
Cambodians in particular fear reprisals because of political tension between
the two countries.[12]
However, it is possible that Burmese and other migrants are also being
targeted, but are less likely to flee due to conditions in their home
countries.[13]
The NCPO government denied that a crackdown on migrants is taking place and
categorically denied all allegations of attacks and human rights violations
against migrants.[14]
On June 25, 2014, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)
announced the creation of service centers to issue temporary entry permits to migrant
workers and temporary work permits to their employers, both of which are
required to obtain legal migrant worker status. After
60 days workers will have to verify their nationality before receiving a longer
work permit. The announcement states that “relevant law enforcement entities shall strictly enforce the law” against migrants whose permits expire.[15]

Thailand routinely arrests
migrant workers and their accompanying family members. Migrants,
including children, report being arrested repeatedly. Nhean P., a 12-year-old
Cambodian boy, said he had been arrested, detained, and deported three times in
the past five years. He described his most recent arrest, in early 2012:

I was on the bus [with my
mother and brother]. Police came and asked for ID – we didn’t have
it. So they told us to get down and they took us to jail and sent us back to
Cambodia. They sent us back in a pickup truck, without covering, open to the
rain. We came right back to Thailand. [If we stayed] in Cambodia, we
wouldn’t have any money.[16]

The lack of a legal framework in
Thailand that recognizes and provides government-issued documents for refugees,
and some obstacles to regularization for migrant workers, means that hundreds
of thousands of Burmese adults and children are vulnerable to arrest on the
street, workplace, or home. In most cases this can lead to detention and
deportation.[17]

Police or immigration
authorities raid migrant worker camps, other accommodation, or places of
employment; they also stop migrants on the street or in markets. Aung M. was 13
years old in March 2013 when she went to a market in the town of Samut Sakhon
with her two sisters. The police stopped them, arrested Aung, and took her to
the police station as she had no papers. “I wanted to cry because I was
afraid,” she said.[18] Her
sisters, who had work permits, ran home and told her mother. Aung’s
mother told Human Rights Watch, “The moment I knew, I was terrified. I
had to find my daughter; I worried [that she would be deported to Burma]”.[19]

Parents reported fear of
letting children leave their sight, in case they should be arrested. Phoe
Zaw, a Burmese man in Mae Sot with a 12-year-old daughter, said, “I worry
about my daughter. I’m afraid of the police. If she goes out and
doesn’t come in on time, I go after her.”[20]

Police and immigration
authorities frequently demand money or valuables from detained migrants or
their relatives in exchange for their release, either from detention or at the
time of arrest. Migrants reported paying bribes ranging from 200 to 8000 baht (US$6 to 250) or more, depending
on the region, the circumstances of the arrest, and the attitudes of the
officers involved. In some cases the migrant could be forced to pay the
equivalent of one to several months’ pay in one incident.[21]
The police sometimes tell apprehended migrants that they can pay a
smaller amount directly to the police to avoid the higher fines they would be
required to pay if taken to court.[22]

Sometimes children with a
school ID card or in a school uniform are not arrested. (Thailand revised its
education policies in 2005 in line with the “Education for All”
movement principles to permit migrant children to attend Thai government schools.)[23]
Koy Mala, a 13-year-old Burmese girl who attended government school, said, “My
parents say that if the police come, wear your school uniform so they
won’t arrest you.” She saw her 14-year-old classmate arrested by
the police in 2013 when she was not wearing her uniform.[24]

Police arrest criteria seem arbitrary
and vary considerably. Saw Lei, a Burmese man with migrant worker status who
was living in Samut Sakhon, told us that in 2012 the police tried to arrest his
then 10-year-old son, but when they discovered his son was a student at an
unofficial migrant school, they let him go without requiring uniform or ID.[25] Yet Saw
Lei’s daughter, who was 13 years old at the time, was arrested in a
separate incident in 2012, even though she also went to the migrant school. She
was released when her teacher came to the police station and vouched that she
was a student.[26]

While Thailand has made
progress in enrolling migrant children in school, there are still significant
gaps, leaving some children vulnerable to arrest. “Many families live far
into the fields,” said Saw Kweh, a veteran community activist in Mae Sot,
“and schools can’t come pick them up. There are costs for going to
school and some families can’t afford it.”[27]

Arrests of Refugees

The largest group of refugees
living in Thailand is from Burma, both from the civil wars and more recently
from the violence against Muslims in Burma’s western Arakan State.[28]
Thousands still live in camps along the Burmese border. There are also around
2,000 refugees from more distant places, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Somalia, and Syria.[29]

Thailand’s refugee
policies are fragmented, unpredictable, and ad hoc, leaving refugees and asylum
seekers unnecessarily vulnerable to arbitrary and abusive treatment.[30] Thailand has
not signed the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees nor its 1967
Protocol (the Refugee Convention) and does not have an asylum law. It therefore
considers refugees and asylum seekers and their families to be irregular
migrants subject to detention. The lack of a legal framework makes the status
of refugees and asylum seekers unclear and renders them vulnerable to arrest
and detention.

Arrests of Burmese Refugees

As of
2013, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statistics said that there were 77,913 Burmese refugees in
refugee camps in Thailand, 34,289 of whom were children.[31] These figures may be low; The Border Consortium, a nongovernmental
organization providing assistance in the border camps, estimates that there are
117,000 Burmese refugees in the 10 camps in which they work as of May 2014.[32] Most fled decades of fighting in Burma, and many children were born
in Thailand to refugee parents.[33] Some portion of the tens of thousands of Burmese migrant
workers in Thailand are, in fact, refugees, but have not been officially
recognized as such, in large part because they are precluded from lodging
claims with the government or with the UNHCR.[34]

Some 92,000 Burmese refugees were resettled
from Thailand to third countries between 2005 and January 2014.[35]Political changes in Burma since 2011,
including the signing of preliminary ceasefire agreements between the Burmese
government and most of the ethnic armed groups, have opened the possibility for
future voluntary repatriation. However, up to now, few ethnic minority group
members have opted to return.[36]

Registered Burmese refugees in
Thailand face stark decisions: they can remain in one of the refugee camps
along the Burmese border, where they are relatively protected from arrest, but
lack freedom to move or work, and are dependent on aid agencies, which have
reduced funding since the ceasefires in Burma. Alternatively, they can live and
work outside the camps (in areas such as in Mae Sot, Chiang Mai, Kanchanaburi,
and Bangkok), but typically without legal status of any kind, which makes them
subject to exploitation, extortion, arrest, and deportation.[37]

For decades, tens of thousands
of ethnic Rohingya, a Muslim minority that is effectively denied citizenship in
Burma, have fled persecution by the Burmese government. In 2012, the situation
significantly worsened as a result of sectarian violence, including “ethnic
cleansing,” in Arakan State, causing massive flights of even more people
fleeing Burma by boat.[38]
In 2013, Thailand permitted 2,055 Rohingya to enter the country, stating it
would offer them “temporary protection,” but then treated them as
undocumented migrants and detained them in IDCs and closed government shelters.

Starting in October 2013,
significant numbers of the Rohingya escaped detention and traveled south
through Thailand to Malaysia, with the involvement of people smugglers who
detained them in jungle camps and then demanded payments to facilitate travel
to Malaysia.[39] Other
Rohingya were deported by Thai immigration officials in Ranong but were not
sent to Burma, but rather into the hands of people smugglers who confined them
in remote camps and inflicted physical torture on those who could not arrange
payment for travel on to Malaysia.

Arrests of Urban Refugees and Asylum Seekers

UNHCR-registered refugees and
asylum seekers (often from countries not neighboring Thailand) tend to live at
the margins of society in Thailand’s cities, in particular in Bangkok.
Without any way to regularize their status with the Thai government, they risk
arrest and detention. When the Thai government detains a refugee or an asylum
seeker, it argues that it is simply detaining an irregular migrant in order to
deport him or her. Therefore, many remain in detention indefinitely, awaiting
the limited places available for resettlement to a third country.[40]

Saleem and Shandana P., a
Pakistani couple seeking asylum, were arrested early in the morning in February
2011. “The police came and did rounds,” Saleem said. “They
came in three or four cars. They knocked on our door [of the apartment they shared
with other asylum seekers]. They took us to the police station.” Saleem
and Shandana were taken to the Bangkok IDC and detained indefinitely.[41]

Refugees and asylum seekers
outside detention live in fear of arrest and extended detention. Suvik P., a Sri
Lankan asylum seeker living in hiding in Bangkok with his wife and 3-year-old
son, said he rarely travels outside his apartment: “If I was alone,
I’d be ready to take the risk, but I can’t now because I’m
with my son… If we don’t want to go back [to Sri Lanka] we’d
have to stay in the IDC for the rest of our lives.”[42]

Nimal P., another Sri Lankan
asylum seeker living in Bangkok, echoed this sentiment: “If I’m
arrested, my son [who is 6 years old] will go to the IDC [with me]. I fear that
even just when I go to the market and come back.”[43]

Thai authorities have limited the
role of UNHCR in Thailand, severely restricting the organization’s ability
to protect refugees, including children, from arrest or detention. UNHCR is not
allowed to conduct refugee status determinations for Burmese, Lao Hmong, or
North Koreans.[44] For
individuals from other countries, UNHCR attempts to process refugee status
determination requests and resettle to third countries refugees who qualify and
for whom there are available places. UNHCR also issues “Asylum Seeker Certificates”
for asylum seekers from other countries that say the bearer is a “Person
of Concern” to UNHCR. However, Thai authorities often refuse to recognize
these certificates, meaning they provide scant protection when police arrest
people.[45]

Many refugees and asylum
seekers in Bangkok complain about the lengthy waiting periods for UNHCR refugee
status determination interviews, for UNHCR to report back on the results of the
interviews, and for the appeals process to run its course. Even once UNHCR recognizes
a person as a refugee, it can take years to be resettled, and only a fraction
of refugees will qualify for the limited numbers of resettlement places. These
delays can leave refugees and asylum seekers more vulnerable to arrest and
detention.[46] While UNHCR is
able to move the procedures slightly faster for people in indefinite detention,
a number of refugees and asylum seekers still languish for months or years in
IDCs before their cases are fully processed.

People in Thailand who have
fled conditions of conflict or persecution are refugees in fact (so-called de
facto refugees) even if Thai officials have not recognized them as refugees
under the law or allowed UNHCR to do so.[47]
The absence of a legal framework for refugee status recognition does not mean
that these people should be denied protections owed to refugees, including
protection from detention.

II. Immigration Detention of
Children

“My [five-year-old] nephew asked, ‘How
long will I stay?’ He asked, ‘Will I live the rest of my life
here?’ I didn’t know what to say.”[48]

-
Yanaal N., indefinitely detained with family in the Bangkok IDC for
approximately six months in 2011

Migrant children—both
children in families and unaccompanied children—are arbitrarily detained
in squalid detention facilities in Thailand. Authorities routinely detain
children from neighboring countries (Burma, Cambodia, and Laos) for relatively short
periods that can range from a few days to a few weeks, while children from
countries that do not border Thailand can be held for much longer periods.[49] Children of
refugees and asylum seekers can be held for years. Migrants, including
children, are typically detained without judicial review or bail, access to
lawyers, or any way to challenge their detention. Such indefinite detention
without recourse to judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention prohibited
under international law.

Some IDCs, such as in Bangkok
or those in towns nearer the country’s borders, are more heavily used
than others. The Bangkok Immigration Detention Center (IDC) is the location for
most of the long-term detainees. However, some interviewees described detainees
held for months in IDCs in other parts of the country, including in Chiang Mai,
Ranong, and Phang Nga.

2014
Human Rights Watch

Arbitrary and Indefinite
Detention of Children

Thailand routinely detains migrant
children and their families without providing information on length of
detention. Human Rights Watch asked, among others, the Office of the Prime
Minister and the Immigration Division for details on the numbers of migrants
detained, the length of detention, and the demographic details of the detainees,
but the government did not provide this information. However, according to
information collected from an international organization, approximately 100
children per year are detained on a long-term basis (that is, for a period of
longer than one month).[50]
Meanwhile, at least 4,000 children are thought to move through the immigration
detention system each year for shorter periods (days or weeks).[51]

The average length of stay for
refugees and asylum seekers was 298 days between 2008 and 2012.[52]
This figure does not include migrants who do not make asylum claims. Staff with
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which provides assistance to some detainees,
informed Human Rights Watch in 2011 that there were Sri Lankan refugees in the
Bangkok IDC who had been detained for four to five years.[53]

Not only does the Thai
government fail to inform detainees of the length of detention, their policies
mean some groups are held without any prospect of release. Refugees—who
by definition fear returning home—and migrants from distant countries who
cannot afford to pay their way home have no way to get out of detention.
Ali A. was an Ahmadi asylum seeker who fled Pakistan in a group with several
children.[54] “We
left Pakistan because we were afraid of prison,” he said. “But in
the IDC in Thailand, we stayed two years… We didn’t see the moon
for two years.”[55]

Amjad P., an Ahmadi refugee
detained with his wife and three sons in the Bangkok IDC from December 2010
until June 2011, said that the indefinite nature of their detention was particularly
troubling: “There was no timeframe in detention. We could be there
forever until someone would take us for third country resettlement.”
Amjad and his family were ultimately released through a trial bail program
(discussed in Chapter IV, below).

Parents worried about the
impact of indefinite detention on their children. Cindy Y. and Doug Y.’s
mother said, “I worried about the long time we were in the IDC… I
didn’t know what their future would be. Inside they had nothing, we were
losing all hope.[56]

Though the majority of our
interviewees who were held indefinitely for long periods were detained in the
Bangkok IDC, Human Rights Watch also received reports of indefinite detention
for months or longer in the IDCs in Chiang Mai, Phang Nga, and Ranong. Most of
the interviewees held for long periods were refugees or asylum seekers who
feared persecution if they were to leave the IDCs and go back to their country
of origin.

Some detainees are held for
months or years in the IDCs because the Thai authorities rarely deport people
at the government’s expense to countries that do not border Thailand.
Instead, they hold them indefinitely until their family members can provide
plane tickets for them to deport themselves. Migrants without financial
resources are faced with very long periods of detention.[57]
“People couldn’t afford to pay their way out,” said Leander
P., an American who overstayed his tourist visa, who was held in a cell in the
Bangkok IDC with around 80 long-term detainees. “It was a modern-day
debtor’s prison. I think that’s just wrong.”[58]

Arrest and detention of
non-citizens, including children, is regulated by the 2009 Immigration Act, the
2008 Alien Employment Act, and official orders.[59]
Sections 19 and 20 of the Immigration Act provide broad discretionary powers
for detention, under which “competent officials” have the authority
to detain non-citizens. There is no legal limit to the length of detention.[60]
Under the Alien Employment Act, a migrant’s case may be processed
formally through the court system, in which case the migrant could be subject
to a period of imprisonment of up to five years and a fine ranging from 2,000
to 100,000 baht (approximately US$66 to US$3,300).[61]

In 2010, the office of the
prime minister issued an order “regarding the suppression, prosecution
and arrest of migrants working underground.”[62] This order provides for “special
cooperation” on immigration enforcement between the Ministries of Labor
and the Interior, as well as the Royal Thai Police Force, the Army, and the
Navy. The Mekong Migration Network asserted in a 2013 study that cooperation
between the police and armed forces in immigration enforcement “lacks
operational transparency and has led to concerns about the treatment of
migrants in detention,” noting that after the order was issued, there was
an increase in harsh crackdowns on irregular migrants.[63]

Non-national children are
subject to the same arrest and detention laws as adults. In 2013, the National Subcommittee on Statelessness, Migration and Displaced
Persons issued a report on the rights of children in immigration detention.
They found that Thai law unnecessarily criminalizes children by failing to
differentiate between children and adults when arresting and detaining
irregular migrants.[64]

Under the 2008
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, if the arresting officials identify an adult
or a child as a victim of trafficking, they may refer that person to a
government shelter instead of sending them to detention.[65]
There are no such exemptions for migrant children who are not victims of
trafficking.

In 2013, the Thai government
used a new form of indefinite detention: keeping women and children in closed
shelters from which they were not permitted to leave. And in a break from
previous practice, Thailand permitted 2,055 Rohingya migrants to stay in the
country in 2013 under “temporary protection” status. Despite the
fact that Rohingya are an oppressed Muslim minority in Burma and have been
subject to considerable targeted violence in recent years, Thailand treated the
group as “illegal migrants” and did not offer them the chance to
claim protection as refugees or consider treating them as stateless persons
under international law. The government separated families, holding adult
men and some male children, including unaccompanied boys, indefinitely in
immigration detention centers,[66]
and detaining others, primarily women and younger children, in closed shelters
run by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS).[67]

All Rohingya at government
shelters interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were not permitted to
leave the facilities. Service providers, including Thai government officials,
confirmed this. The Thai government made no plans to regularize
detainees’ immigration status. This left the Rohyinga forcibly confined
in shelters they were not permitted to leave .[68]

While hundreds of children such
as Rohingya are indefinitely detained for months or more, much larger numbers
of children are held typically days or weeks, again without a predetermined
time of detention and without recourse to judicial review. An international
organization estimates that at least 2,500 children from Cambodia, Burma, and
Laos pass through the Bangkok IDC each year before being summarily deported.[69]
Many other IDCs around the country also detain children from neighboring
countries for short periods, including IDCs in Samut Sakhon, Ranong, Chiang
Rai, Mae Sot, and Ubon Ratchathani.

Adults and children are also
arbitrarily detained in police lock-ups. Mai M., an ethnic Mon girl from Burma without
paperwork in Thailand, was arrested in the outskirts of Bangkok around December
2011, when she was 15 years old. She said she was taken to a police station
with her mother, uncle, and cousin, and held for 15 days, without seeing a
judge or going to court, before police took her and 30 other migrants to the
Burmese border by truck to be deported.[70]

Human Rights Watch documented
cases of unaccompanied migrant children who were detained,[71]
despite international prohibitions on detention of such children.[72]
Htee Yaw, a Burmese migrant living and working in Chiang Mai, reported that
police arrested and detained his 17-year-old brother for several weeks, without
any family members, in December 2010. He went to the police station and pleaded
for his release: “They knew he was 17, my brother told them, I told them….
He was arrested by the police with handcuffs, even though he was young and had
committed no crime.”[73]Htee Yaw said he had to pay a bribe of 5,000 baht ($167) to secure his
brother’s release.[74]

Very young children and
infants, who are exceptionally vulnerable and in need of nurture and care, are
nonetheless detained. Labaan T., a Somali refugee and father who had been
detained for two years and eight months at the time of the interview in the
Bangkok IDC in 2011, emphasized just how hard it was for his young son to
develop behind bars. “It is absolutely difficult for a boy of 3 years to
grow up amid 50-plus grown-up men in a locked room and only allowed to go out
for a short period of less than two hours in the sunshine after three days.”[75]

Under Thailand’s
immigration law, any migrant who enters the country without proper
documentation will be regarded as an illegal immigrant and may be subject to
detention awaiting deportation. Detention is permissible until the authorities
execute the deportation, and where they cannot deport, indefinitely.
Thailand’s laws do not give migrants or asylum seekers opportunities to
challenge their detention, nor do they provide any way for them to know when
they will be released.

International Law
Prohibiting Detention of Migrant Children

Thailand deprives children of
their liberty as a routine response to irregular entry, rather than as a
measure of last resort. Yet international law places strict limits on the
exceptional use of detention of children. The Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC), to which Thailand is party, states that detention of any type
should only be used against children as “a measure of last resort and for
the shortest appropriate period of time.”[76]

International law indicates
that children should not be detained for reasons related to their migration
status. In February 2013, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of
independent experts that interprets the CRC, urged states to “expeditiously
and completely cease the detention of children on the basis of their
immigration status,” concluding that such detention is never in the
child’s best interest.[77]
In the interim, the committee stated, while immigration detention of children
remains, governments should impose strict time limits to the child’s
detention in order to minimize the loss of education and impact on mental
health.[78]

Deprivation of liberty has a
negative effect on children’s capacity to realize various fundamental
rights enumerated in the CRC, including the rights to education, health, and
family unity.[79]

International law delineates additional
protection from detention for refugee and asylum-seeking children.
Refugees—who are lawfully present in a country—should not be
detained.[80]
UNHCR’s Guidelines on Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the
Detention state that “[a]s a general rule, asylum seekers should not be
detained.”[81]
In the exceptional cases where asylum-seeking children are detained, UNHCR
emphasizes that this detention must conform to the restrictive parameters
expressed in the CRC.[82]
The CRC (as well as UNHCR’s specific guidelines for asylum-seeking
children) emphasizes that immigration detention of children must have at its
core an “ethic of care,” prioritizing the best interest of the
child above immigration enforcement.[83]

Thailand’s indefinite
detention regime, without the possibility of judicial review or remedy, amounts
to arbitrary detention prohibited by international treaties to which Thailand
is party. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
provides: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.”[84]
The CRC mandates that all children deprived of their liberty (including
children in immigration detention) have the right to “prompt access to
legal and other appropriate assistance” and to challenge the legality of
the deprivation of their liberty before a court.[85]

The United Nations Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention holds that a migrant or asylum seeker placed in
detention “must be brought promptly before a judge or other authority.”[86]
The Working Group’s mandate to investigate arbitrary deprivation of
liberty includes “[w]hen asylum seekers, immigrants or refugees are
subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of
administrative or judicial review or remedy.”[87]
UNHCR emphasizes that asylum seekers and refugees have the rights to liberty
and freedom of movement and that detention must only be in accordance with and
authorized by law.[88]

II. Impact of Immigration Detention on Children

It is unfortunate that innocent children should be
denied a reasonable upbringing to which they are entitled. They neither
comprehend the circumstances nor had any choice to make.

- Labaan T., a Somali refugee
indefinitely detained with his two children, Bangkok IDC, June 2014.

Thailand’s use of
immigration detention has deeply harmed children’s development. Detention
is not in the child’s best interest as it causes lasting harm, in part by
impeding children’s capacity to attain the highest attainable standard of
health. Exceptionally vulnerable and at key developmental points in their
lives, children in immigration detention risk psychological trauma, poor
physical health, and setbacks in their educational and social development.

Risk of Psychological Harm

Indefinite detention can have
a devastating effect on migrants’ mental health. Children, due to their
ongoing development, can suffer severe mental health problems. Young people
have fewer psychological resources than adults to help them manage the stress,
anxiety, and poor conditions they experience in immigration detention. For many
children in immigration detention, developmental immaturity is compounded by
histories of trauma at home and during flight.

There is a considerable body
of scientific literature describing psychological harm linked to immigration detention.
In 2009, the British Journal of Psychiatry
published a systematic review of 10 studies investigating the impact of
immigration detention on the mental health of children, adolescents, and
adults. The review found that all studies reported “high levels of mental
health problems in detainees,” including anxiety, depression, self-harm,
and suicidal ideation, and that “time in detention was positively
associated with severity of distress.”[89]

In 2003, the medical journal The Lancet published research, based on a
group of 70 asylum seekers aged 15 to 52 years old detained in the US, finding
that “nearly all” the detainees in the study had “clinically
significant symptoms of anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder,
which worsened with time in detention and improved on release.”[90]
The authors concluded that their findings “suggest detention of asylum
seekers exacerbates psychological symptoms.”[91]

Studies in the United Kingdom
and Australia demonstrated deterioration in mental health linked to immigration
detention. A 2009 study of immigration detention in the UK suggested similarly
high rates of mental illness: after a median of 30 days of detention, 76
percent of detained adult asylum seekers in this study were clinically depressed
compared with 26 percent of a non-detained comparison sample.[92]
In Australia, a 2006 study of refugees who had been detained found that
immigration detention was linked to risk of ongoing Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), depression, and mental-health related disability, even after
release, and that “longer detention was associated with more severe
mental disturbance.”[93]

The 2009 British Journal of Psychiatry systematic
review emphasized that children demonstrated additional problems compared to
adults, while also noting that the sample sizes made the reliability of data
problematic. Problems observed include separation anxiety, sleep disturbances
(including nightmares, night terror, and sleep walking), impaired cognitive
development, and, less often, mutism and refusal to eat or drink.[94]

A 2004 Australian study cited
in the systematic review found that children regularly reported anxiety
regarding educational delays and a sense of shame. Eighty percent of the
younger children (below 6 years old) had developmental delays or emotional
disturbances. All 10 of the older children in the study (aged between 6 and 17
years) met the clinical criteria for PTSD, all 10 had major depression, and all
expressed suicidal ideation. Eight of the older children had engaged in
self-harm.[95]

According to a 2009 study in
the UK that conducted a psychological assessment of 11 children held in
immigration detention, all 11 reported symptoms of depression and anxiety;
sleep problems, poor appetite, and behavioral difficulties were common.[96]
A 2011 paper examining the impact of detention of asylum-seeking and refugee
children in Canada found that “the preliminary results of nearly 20 in-depth
interviews with children and families are in keeping with international medical
literature: detention is highly distressing for children and may have long-term
consequences.”[97]

During research for this
report, children and their parents described to Human Rights Watch a variety of
mental health problems associated with detention, including depression, sleep
problems, isolation, and detachment. Doug Y. was an active 6-year-old boy
when he entered detention, but he became despondent, according to his sister: “He
was just sitting and lying down.”[98]Doug’s mother said he “wasn’t talking [when they were
in the IDC]. It’s hard on the children, we were losing all hope.”[99]

Cindy Y. was 9 when she
entered immigration detention, and stayed for three years. “The worst
part was that you were trapped and stuck,” she said. “You
couldn’t go anywhere. You look to the left, it was always the same. To
the right, always the same. And in front of you, just lots and lots of people,
so many people. I would look outside and see people walking around the
neighborhood, and I would hope that would be me.”[100]

Adults who spoke to Human
Rights Watch who had been held for longer periods noted a negative impact on
mental well-being. Abid A., an adult held for two years in the Bangkok IDC,
said that by the end, his “mind was not working properly. If you stay in
one room without going outside, without contact, your mind gets confused.”[101]Leander P., the
American held in the IDC in 2012, was detained alongside a Swedish detainee who
Leander said had been there for several years. “He went into the bathroom
and kept banging his head on the metal pipe. He looked totally beat, exhausted,
like he’d given up. People had to pull him away from the pipe. I think he
was trying to commit suicide.”[102]

Interviewees said that there
were very few resources available for people with mental health problems.
Leander described an elderly British man in his cell who was suffering from
what Leander believed was dementia. “He never went down to the doctor
while I was there... There’s no way he should have been there. He thought
I was a woman, he had real dementia problems. He absolutely should not have
been there. He was completely confused.”[103]

Some children remembered
vividly the trauma of detention. Veata S. was 10 when we spoke with her. She
described in detail her detention in the Bangkok IDC two years earlier: “They
[the immigration police] had bats, they would slap people in the face…
I’m scared now, I’m scared they’re going to beat me, with the
bats they have.”[104]

Adults who spoke to Human
Rights Watch worried that children in immigration detention started to see
detention as a normal condition. Ali A., who was detained in the Bangkok IDC
for two years, said:

Some babies, if they’re
born there or stay there for one or two years, they think this is life. They
think this is normal… One man in our room had a child… who came in
as an infant. That girl stayed four years. She will think “This is my
life, this is everything.” If your children go live in the IDC their
emotions will die.[105]

Risk of Harm to Physical Health

Detention of children can
cause serious physical harm and exposes them to a range of potential health
risks. Immigration detention facilities are rarely equipped to provide
appropriate care for children’s physical health. Thailand’s IDCs
are not designed to hold families or young children, or for that matter,
anyone, for a lengthy period. Lack of exercise and adequate nutrition
particularly affect children’s growing bodies. Our interviewees indicated
instances of children falling sick in detention.

Lack of Adequate Exercise

One of the defining
experiences for children held in immigration detention is lack of adequate
recreation space, exercise, and fresh air.

Many of our child interviewees
held in the Bangkok IDC, for instance, were either unable to go to the
recreation area, or only allowed to go there approximately once a week for one
or two hours. Cindy Y., who was 9 when she entered the IDC, spent the vast
majority of the time confined to an overcrowded cell, barely walking. “When
I first got out, it was hard to run,” she said. “I got…
cramps. But I kept at it, and now I can run.”[106]

The recreation space itself
was crowded and inappropriate for children. Doug Y. was 6 when he entered the
Bangkok IDC. “Football is my favorite thing,” he told us. “But
we couldn’t play football in the IDC. Even in the recreation area, there
wasn’t space. If you kick a ball, you’d hit someone, or a little
kid. And we only had a little ball.”[107]
Leander P., the American adult held in 2012, said, “People in the
exercise area could be very aggressive.”[108]

Often children held for
shorter periods are not allowed outside at all. Nhean P. said he had been
arrested, detained in the Bangkok IDC, and deported back to Cambodia three
times between the ages of 7 and 12. Each time, he was detained for a few nights
or a week without being allowed out of his cell. He said, “We don’t
have a place to play outside [there]. We just eat and sleep, eat and sleep.”[109]

Mai M. was 15 when she was
held in a police station on the outskirts of Bangkok for 15 days in December
2011; she said the cell was “always very packed” and “we
weren’t allowed to go outside, we were always in the same room.”[110]

Many international and
national public health organizations recommend that children engage in at least
one hour or more of physical activity each day.[111]
Children should engage in a combination of activities, such as vigorous aerobic
activity like running or football; muscle-strengthening activity, such as
gymnastics; and bone-strengthening activity, such as jumping rope.[112]

Lack of Adequate Nutrition

Children, who are physically
growing and changing, need age-appropriate nutrition and care. Human Rights
Watch found that authorities routinely failed to provide children in
immigration detention with adequate nutrition appropriate for their physical
development. Parents reported that they had to supplement their
children’s diet with food purchased on the black market, using precious,
dwindling resources.

Interviewees told Human Rights
Watch about the poor quality and insufficient quantity of food provided to them.
Cindy Y. turned 9 when she was held in the Chiang Mai IDC for three months. “We
were just lying down all day, without enough to eat or drink.”[113]
In the Bangkok IDC, detainees were generally given food three times per day,
but several detainees reported they were provided insufficient amounts of food
and that they were often hungry. Arunny P. had been detained in the Bangkok IDC
at least three times by the time we interviewed her at 10 years old, deported
each time to Cambodia. “The food wasn’t good,” she said.
“Just a little rice, I was not full.”[114]
“The food was only rice and soup,” said Saleem P., a Pakistani
asylum seeker held in the Bangkok IDC with several boys in 2011.
“Sometimes chicken [in the soup], but mostly bones.”[115]

Labaan T., a Somali refugee,
was detained in 2011 in the Bangkok IDC in a cell with his 3-year-old son,
while his wife and year-old child stayed in another cell. He worried about
nutrition: “The diet for the boy [in my cell] consists of the same rice
that everybody else eats. He needs fruits which are neither provided nor
available for purchase.”[116]

Some detainees reported
insufficient potable water. Abid A., an adult held for two years in the Bangkok
IDC alongside refugee boys, said, “We didn’t have filtered water,
we’d have to drink water from [the same sink as they used for] washing
clothes. Sometimes they’d turn off the water for 15 to 18 hours.”[117]

Some interviewees reported
concerns that the unsanitary conditions tainted the food. For instance, one
interviewee said that in the Bangkok IDC, detainees washed their own food trays
in the toilet areas, using the same water source as was used for the toilets
themselves; the detainees used the same trays for the next meal without other
opportunities to wash them.[118]

Some detainees reported
supplementing their diet or that of their children by buying food and water
from the outside. Peter X., a Chinese refugee who was detained in the Bangkok
IDC with his parents, said people had to drink water from the wash area, “unless
they buy bottles” at “five times the price” of shops in
Bangkok.[119]
Leander P. reported that it was possible to buy food, such as fresh chicken or
noodles, from other detainees who were friendly with the guards, for a mark-up
of about 50 percent on street prices.[120]

Parents struggled to ensure
adequate and nutritious food for their children. For example, Mathy S., a Sri
Lankan asylum seeker who was held in the IDC for two years with her four
daughters, the youngest of whom was 8 when they were arrested, said, “I
worried my girls would develop real health problems... I’d spend 500-600
baht (about US$17-20) [each week] to buy food for the girls. It was hard to say
no to what they needed.” Mathy had to scramble to find money: “We’d
sell land in Sri Lanka and send the money to Thailand [so a family member]
could buy things for us.”

Major governmental and
intergovernmental authorities such as the Food and Agriculture Organization,
the World Health Organization, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US
National Institutes of Health, recommend a balanced diet for children of
nutrient-dense foods, including vegetables, fruits, and cereals.[121]
Healthy food is essential for child development;[122]
physical development, including bone development, requires particular nutrients
to ensure healthy growth.[123]
The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners mandate that
prison officials ensure detainees regularly have food of “nutritional value
adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and
served[,]” as well as adequate drinking water.[124]

Poor Health and Insufficient Medical Care

Children’s right to the
highest attainable standard of health is compromised by detention. Interviewees
reported persistent medical problems due to detention and lack of access to
care. Children and families in detention are entirely dependent on Thai
authorities for medical care, yet interviewees reported insufficient access to
medical services and inadequate treatment. Care for pregnant women and newborns
was also lacking.

A number of studies indicate
endemic health problems and lack of access to appropriate healthcare services
in Thailand’s immigration detention facilities. The Thai National Subcommittee on Statelessness, Migration and Displaced
Persons found in a 2013 study that children in immigration detention suffer
from skin diseases, respiratory diseases, and malnutrition.[125] A World Health Organization-sponsored meeting noted low rates of
tuberculosis screening in 2012 in the Bangkok IDC.[126] A 2012 paper in the Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration found that
among 96 interviewees (one third of whom were children) who had been detained
in the Bangkok IDC for at least several months in 2011, “everyone,
especially the children, suffered physically” from detention conditions.
Interviewees reported skin allergies, itching, asthma, and fever.[127]

Interviewees for this report
described poor general conditions that could lead to disease. Peter X., a
Chinese refugee who was detained in the Bangkok IDC with his parents, said, “The
biggest problem was the air quality. There was no ventilation. A quarter of the
people in the room were smoking. The whole place, it was suffocating. I wore a
mask but I still got sick after two to four days.”[128] Labaan
T., a Somali refugee held with his 3-year-old son, said, “The room has 50
occupants, most of whom are smokers. The conditions are not hygienic for the
boy. The room is hot and dirty which has caused the boy to be sick frequently.”[129]

Interviewees also reported
chronic health problems that were not resolved by medical care. Bhavani S., who
was 8 years old when she entered the Bangkok IDC for two years and was held in
a fetid cell, developed a persistent rash, according to her mother, Mathy.[130] Mathy added
that several of the other young children, including toddlers, developed a
similar rash.[131]
Mathy consulted the nurse at the clinic in the Bangkok facility, but said that
the rash persisted for years despite the prescribed medication.[132]

Abid A., an adult who was held
in the Bangkok IDC for two years, acquired sores on his legs. “It hurt so
much I couldn’t walk or pray … The nurse told me to keep clean. But
how could I keep clean?”[133]

Peter X. described an incident
in which medical care was slow, despite serious illness:

[A 30-year old man in my cell]
started having fits, like epilepsy … He’d been in the cell, having
fits, lying in his own puke, for hours. [Eventually, detainees and guards] put
him outside the cell on a low bench and used a water hose…. Then he lay
on that table. It was probably 10 hours before they took him outside the center
for some treatment. The doctor never came, it was the nurse from the clinic who
came, but no one else, no one with medical equipment. He was half naked, just
in his boxers. He was unconscious, [both] in the cell and outside on the table.[134]

Medical care for pregnant
women and young infants was lacking. Saleem and Shandana P., Pakistani
asylum-seekers, were expecting a baby when they were detained in the IDC for
several months in 2011. Saleem said, “My wife… had no check-ups. I
asked the guards four or five times for check-ups, but nothing.”[135] Shandana was
enormously relieved when she and Saleem were released prior to her due date: “I
saw one woman who was pregnant, in her last month, at the IDC. They took her
[to a local hospital handcuffed] to deliver the baby…. I was scared it
would be the same for me.”[136]

Women were brought back to the
IDC with their newborn infants a few days after giving birth. However, several
interviewees complained that authorities made inadequate provisions for the
most basic needs of young infants. Sithara P., a Sri Lankan asylum seeker, was
held in the Bangkok IDC with her husband and three children for at least three
years. Her youngest child was 10 months when they entered the facility. “We
didn’t have diapers for the baby [in the IDC],” she said. “The
baby would wake up soaked in urine.”[137]

Social and Developmental
Harm

Children in immigration
detention are denied the chance to realize rights central to their social,
emotional, and educational development. They are frequently deprived of contact
with their families, whether by separation into different cells in the same
detention facility, or by family outside not being able to visit. Many children
in immigration detention do not have sufficient access to education, or to
services that would enrich their growth and allow them to fulfill their
potential. Some refugee children who are resettled to third countries may
encounter further difficulties integrating into a new life after years in
detention.

Denial of Family Contact

Children held in
Thailand’s immigration detention facilities were routinely separated from
family members and denied opportunities to see them. Mui, who runs a shelter
for street children in Bangkok, commented on her years of experience working
with Cambodian children who are deported through the Bangkok IDC: “If the
children are big enough to play, they might be separated [from their parents].”[138] If children
are housed in a different cell from one parent, they are not necessarily given
any visitation opportunities.

A number of interviewees told
Human Rights Watch that one of the most painful aspects of being detained for
long periods was being separated from family members. Amjad P., an Ahmadi
refugee who was detained in the Bangkok IDC from December 2010 until June 2011,
said he was in one cell with his two older boys; his wife and youngest child
were in another cell. “It was painful for us to be separated from our
wives and children,” he said of his own family and other Ahmadi asylum
seekers in the same situation. “Our family life was destroyed.”[139]

Kah, a 17-year-old Burmese boy
without paperwork, was detained for one month in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand,
without his parents or another guardian, before being deported to Burma. He was
kept in a filthy cell with about 50 men and one 5-year-old boy. The 5-year-old’s
mother, who was in a different cell and could only see her son for one hour
every day, spent much of the rest of the time sitting by the cell door and
calling his name. Meanwhile, Kah said of the distraught little boy, “We
tried to make him laugh.”[140]

Our interviewees reported that
children were visibly affected by these enforced separations. Yanaal N. was
detained with his 5-year-old nephew, who he said struggled, wanting to see both
his parents. “[My nephew] was with his mother for the first 10 or 12
days. Then he said he wanted to be with his father and me, so they moved him to
our cell [where he couldn’t see his mother].” Yanaal’s nephew
was periodically allowed to attend the IOM-run daycare center in the IDC. “After,
[my nephew] would sneak up to his mother’s cell with his sister to wave
‘bye’ to his mother. If the guards saw this and caught him he would
be in trouble.”[141]

Without visitation
opportunities arranged by immigration officers, many detainees were dependent
on interventions from outside groups for visits to take place. When outsiders
visit the Bangkok IDC, they can request to see a particular detainee
(identified by their detention center registration number) and that detainee is
brought to the visitors’ room. Volunteers from church or community
service groups are able to coordinate their visits so family members can be
brought to the room at the same time, and have the opportunity to see each
other.

Dwight Turner, an American
living in Bangkok who has volunteered at the IDC, described the loud, chaotic
atmosphere during these visiting periods, which last for less than an hour. “There’s
a fence that separates visitors and those visited, but at least families could
meet and touch,” he said.[142]
Without these coordinated visits from volunteer groups, families have few other
chances to meet.

Denial of Adequate Education

Children in immigration
detention typically have no meaningful access to education or to other
enriching experiences. Yet these children are often held for weeks, months, or
even years at a time when their education is crucial to their development. None
of the children interviewed for this report described adequate schooling during
their time in detention, and parents repeatedly cited the lack of education as
a key concern.

Mathy S. was detained for two
years in the Bangkok IDC in the same cell as her four daughters. “When we
were in Sri Lanka, the girls were healthy and had a good education,” she
said. “The biggest problem [in the IDC]: I worried that my girls’
education stopped.”[143]

Cindy Y. was held in various
IDCs for three years, starting at age nine. When she was finally released, she
was behind in school: “I missed some years, and now… I’m in
younger classes. I feel ashamed that I’m the oldest and studying with the
younger ones.”[144]

Unlike most other immigration
detention facilities, the Bangkok IDC does have a daycare center (run by IOM),
which some children (typically longer-staying children) can attend. While the
daycare center is a welcome break for children, it does not fulfill the Thai
government’s obligation to provide education. The center has limited
capacity, so children can only attend a few times per week, and less if the IDC
is crowded and there are more children in detention.[145]
Children from Laos, Cambodia, and Burma (who are typically detained for shorter
periods) rarely, if ever, are allowed to go to the daycare center.

The National Subcommittee on Statelessness, Migration and Displaced
Persons found in a 2013 study that children in immigration detention in
Thailand are routinely denied education, and this puts Thailand in violation of
its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[146]

III. Abusive Conditions for Children in
Immigration Detention

The Bible talks about hell. This is one part of hell.

-
Sunil K., a Nepalese man detained in the Bangkok IDC, June
2011

Children, for whom the
potential harm of immigration detention is great, have that harm magnified by
the appalling conditions in Thailand’s immigration detention facilities.
Children and parents alike consistently reported horrendous conditions of
detention—including severe overcrowding, putrid sanitation, and an
atmosphere of violence—that fall far short of international standards.[147] The poor
conditions of the facilities make it even less likely that detained children
can grow and thrive.

Human Rights Watch was not
allowed sufficient access to the Bangkok IDC—the facility that holds the
majority of long-term detainees, as well as significant numbers of those
detained for short periods—or to other facilities to make a first-hand
assessment of conditions of detention. Nonetheless, detainees and former
detainees gave consistent accounts of overcrowded, unhygienic, and sometimes
violent conditions inappropriate and damaging for children.

The poor conditions stem in
part from the fact that the IDCs were not built to house large numbers of
detainees for long periods of time. The government has acknowledged this issue
but has failed to address it. In 2011, Vijavat Isarabhakdi, director general of
the Department of International Organizations in the Thai Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, told Human Rights Watch: “We acknowledge that the IDCs were not
built to house such large numbers.”[148]

A second key reason for
Thailand’s abysmal detention conditions is that Thailand considers it the
detainees’ responsibility, rather than the government’s, to provide
for basic needs in detention. Thailand’s immigration law requires that “the
expense of detention shall be charged to the alien’s account,”[149] in clear
violation of international standards.[150]

International law binding on
Thailand prescribes appropriate treatment of detained children, as well as
adults. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
provides that “[a]ll persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated
with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person,”[151]
while the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) specifies that “every
child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the
inherent dignity of the human person and in a manner which takes into account
the needs of persons of his or her age.”[152]

Thailand’s immigration
detention facilities fail to meet minimum international standards. The UN
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners set the international
standard for minimally acceptable conditions for detention, which include basic
standards of hygiene, provision of food, the separation of men and women, and
children and adults, access to natural light and fresh air, and recreation.[153]
UNHCR’s guidelines on detention of asylum seekers notes that states must
adhere to UN standards on conditions of confinement, including by segregating
children from unrelated adults where it is in their best interest, and by
always providing education. Where children in families are subject to
immigration detention, states should ensure that the child should not be
separated from his or her parents against his or her will.[154]

Abusive Conditions for Children in the Bangkok IDC

The first day I thought, wow, this is really where I
have to stay? … People have been here months and years…. If I had
been standing at that door taking a picture, just looking at everyone lying
down, body after body – it was an awful sight.

-
Leander P., an American detained in the Bangkok IDC in 2012

The Bangkok IDC deals with
thousands of children every year, including some 2,500 who are processed for
deportation to neighboring countries. Generally the
facility with the most detainees nationwide, the Bangkok IDC also hosts the
vast majority of the long-term detainees, including around a hundred children
as of October 2013. The government does grant some domestic and international
nongovernmental organizations access to provide basic assistance, but this does
not cover all needs.

The Bangkok IDC has large
cells that are designed to hold around 80 people, but which, according to
nearly all of our interviewees, are often overcrowded. Detention officials
divide detainees by gender and by nationality, though there can be many
nationalities grouped in one room. Long-term detainees described being held in
the same cell as other long-term detainees, though they also describe
short-term detainees joining them at particularly crowded times.

Failure to Separate Children from Non-Relative Adults

Children are typically held in
the same room as one of their parents, with other unrelated adults, while
unaccompanied children are held in cells with adults of their gender, in
violation of international standards on detention.[155]
The National Subcommittee on Statelessness, Migration and
Displaced Persons found in 2013 that this practice puts Thailand in violation
of its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[156]

According to the interviewees,
younger children, including infants and nursing toddlers, tend to be in the
same cell as their mother. Boys can be sent to live in the same room as their
fathers at varying ages. One long-term detainee reported that boys were sent to
the male room around 12 years of age.[157]
Yet we also received reports of boys being separated from their mothers and
sent to the male room as young as 2 years.[158]

Whether unaccompanied or with
a family member in their cell, children held with unrelated adults, who themselves
are under the stress of detention, are exceptionally vulnerable to abuse and
neglect. For instance, Amanthi S., a Sri Lankan refugee detained in a cell with
her mother and three sisters, reported being afraid of a Russian detainee who,
she said, “hit me – it was really scary.”[159]

Degrading Treatment in Initial Holding Cells

Some detainees reported that
when they initially entered the IDC, they were held in transit, or processing,
cells for several days before being allocated more permanent space. These cells
were hectic and inappropriate for children. Amanthi, who was 12 years old when
she entered the IDC, described the initial large cell as “a big hall,
with people with diseases.”[160]

Diederik O., a Ugandan refugee
held in the IDC in 2010, described the initial holding cell. He slept in a
small place on the tiled floor, with a “bright light that is never turned
off just above my eyes.” The first day, “through the night,
detainees were brought in and out, causing a few stirs as they lined them up,
men, boys, women and girls, with guards shouting out sit down, line-up orders
in Thai.”[161]
Diederik, who was awaiting resettlement to the United States, described groups
of “women, girls and their children lined up and made to squat in lines
and then stayed for about an hour before [the initial registration] process was
over.” He added, “I did not really enjoy the sight of all this,
people [were] treated like animals.”[162]

Diederik described the
deterioration in his cell’s conditions. With more than 100 people in his
cell, including a boy he estimates was seven years old, he wrote in his diary, “We
were full to the max … packed in like sardines[.] I could …
just sleep in one position all night long…. Before dawn, then the
detention cell … was a sauna in itself, dripping with sweat, as I moved
to and from the dirty stinky washroom to wet my body, shirt and face. [With]
inmates packed over each other in an attempt to sleep … it looked like a
… body dumping corner.”[163]

Children in Overcrowded, Squalid Cells

Children barely had room to
sleep or walk, let alone room to run or play, in cells they were held in for
months or years. Cindy Y. was held in a women’s cell for three years
starting at the age of nine. “There were so many people in the room, we
slept sitting and leaning on each other,”[164]she said, while demonstrating that
sleeping position with her younger brother. Nimal P., a Sri Lankan asylum
seeker, was held in a cell for several months in 2013 with his seven-year-old
son, with a varying population between 55 and 120 people. “At 120
[people] the boy can’t lie down,” he said. “There’s no
room for him to play.”[165]

According to the Mekong
Migration Network (MMN), a regional coalition of NGOs that engaged in an
extensive study of Thailand’s arrest and deportation practices in 2013,
the Bangkok IDC has cells of different sizes, the smallest being approximately
12 meters by 8 meters, and the largest around 50 meters by 50 meters.[166]
MMN estimates that at times there are 400 detainees held in a single cell.[167]
Similarly, a 2012 study interviewing those held and released from the Bangkok
IDC, cited interviews with women and girls asserting “300
to 400 persons had to stay in a room built for 40 to 50 persons.”[168]

The World Health Organization,
in the course of a study on tuberculosis in 2013, found there to be
approximately 880 to 1,000 people detained in the Bangkok IDC, with
approximately 3 square meters per person.[169]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recommends at least 3.4
square meters per detainee (and 5.4 meters per detainee in newly constructed
prisons).[170]

Ali A., a Pakistani asylum
seeker who was detained for two years in the Bangkok IDC, said that “we’d
have to hang our bags on strings because the room was full, there wasn’t
space to keep them on the floor.”[171]
Abid A., who was detained alongside Ali, added, “The guards would cut our
strings so the things would fall down about two times per month” to
search for contraband or smuggled property.[172]

Leander P. also described such
conditions persisting in 2012: “When I got in there were 83 people listed
in the room [I was assigned to]. That was really tight. There’s almost no
way to walk around… If I rolled to the right, I’d lie on someone.
If I rolled to the left I’d roll on someone else. I’d get elbowed
all the time. I had to hang my bag by a string or use it as a
pillow—there was no room anywhere else.”[173]

Not only did children report
that they had no room to sleep, they also reported that they frequently did not
have mattresses or blankets. Arunny P., from Cambodia, had been detained at the
Bangkok IDC three times by the time she was 10 years old. When describing the
most recent time, she said, “We slept on tiles and had to sleep in rows
all next to each other because there were lots of people.”[174]
Veata S., a Cambodian girl, was eight years old when she was detained at the
Bangkok IDC in 2011. She was held with her mother and younger sister in a cell
where “we had nothing, we just slept on the floor, on the hard floor.”[175]

Rosa H. stayed in the Bangkok
IDC for almost two years with her friend Linda Y. and Linda’s two
children. “We never had any mattresses,” she said. “They
never gave us clothes.”[176]
Linda added, “One winter, [a humanitarian NGO] gave blankets for
everyone.”[177]

Labaan T., a Somali refugee
indefinitely detained with his three-year-old son in 2011, reported that the
appalling conditions took their toll on his son’s health. “He
bathes in the same water as the rest of us in the room and sometimes there is
no water at all.”[178]

Saleem P., a Pakistani Ahmadi
asylum seeker held in a cell with children in 2011, reported that “the
water would only run for four hours, during which so many people, 60 people,
had to shower, do anything.”[179]
Sunil K., a Nepalese refugee, had been detained for three years and nine months
when Human Rights Watch interviewed him in 2011. He said, “We also
can’t get hot water. We use a naked [electrical] wire to heat the water.”[180]

Cindy Y., the girl held for
three years starting at the age of nine, told us that her cell, shared with at
least 40 other people, “smelled like a rubbish bin, like near a toilet.
People smoked and I didn’t like that… I’d put mint under my
nose to block the smell.”[181]Veata, the Cambodian girl who was eight when she was last detained said, “The
toilet was really bad, the smell was really bad.”[182]

Leander P. described the
shower area in his cell as “awful”. He said that of the three
toilets—for approximately 80 people—one was “just a storage
area, for cleaning stuff.” One of the other two toilets was permanently
clogged:

As a solution, someone had
drilled a hole in the side, so what would have gone down just drained onto the floor….
After every meal you’d have to go into the bathroom to use the water and
sponges there to clean your tray. If someone was in that toilet, there’d
be shit in the water you’d wash your tray in…. The sponges were on
the floor, in the shit. That was the only way the trays were washed.[183]

Peter X., who fled China aged
17 and was detained in the Bangkok IDC before being resettled to the US, said
that “the whole cell’s covered in this cage, with an opening at the
bottom. They’d slide food through the opening. I felt like they were
feeding animals.”[184]

Abid A., said, “There were
many times some creatures…. Lots of cockroaches.”[185]
Ali A. added that “there were some insects like lice that sucked blood.
Anywhere we have hairs, they’d come and suck, and if the blankets weren’t
clean, they’d live there…. It was itchy, itchy from the dirty
blankets.”[186]

The toll on children’s
mental and physical health from being held in such appalling conditions is
high. Detention is inherently problematic for the realization of
children’s right to health.

Children Exposed to Violence

The Bangkok IDC appears to
operate with an atmosphere of violence that renders the environment even more
unsuitable for children. Interviewees repeatedly reported fights breaking out
in the overcrowded cells; sometimes excessive force used by guards to break up
those fights, including with batons; and occasionally young children physically
hurt in the violence.

Children of all ages said that
they were witness to episodes of violence, underscoring the unsafe and
unhealthy environment of detention. The psychological harm of immigration detention
is exacerbated by the stress of violence and fear of attack.

International law binding on
Thailand prohibits corporal punishment and cruel, inhuman, and degrading
treatment in detention facilities, whether criminal or civil.[187]
Similar standards prohibit the use of force against children in detention
except in exceptional circumstances to prevent self-injury, injury to others,
and destruction of property.[188]

Many interviewees described
the Bangkok IDC as a loud and violent place. Even though Leander P. was an
adult—25 years old—when he was detained, he still found the
environment difficult: “I was really scared, when I first walked in.
People were pounding on the walls, yelling at us.”[189]

Interviewees such as Yanaal
N., a Pakistani asylum seeker detained in the Bangkok IDC, described “fights
every five or six days, with other prisoners.”[190]
Leander explained how guards would respond: “They’d hit people with
sticks, the people in the fight… they’d punish people in the fight
even if the fight was over.”[191]
Ali A. said, “The guards would hit with their hands, slap, and punch”[192] in addition to
using batons.

This environment left children
terrified. Cindy Y. was ten when she was taken to the Bangkok IDC and held
there for almost two years. She said, “I saw people fighting and I was
scared, I was scared of the guards. You know, they have sticks. What if they
hit me? I’m really scared of fighting.”[193]

One adult detainee described
one particular incident witnessed by a ten-year-old girl detained with her: “Some
Cambodian women were fighting…. [Six or seven] guards came in… they
were beating the women with their sticks…. The guards hit [one woman] on
the face. Her eye swelled up, all over that side of her face.”[194]

Veata S., from Cambodia, was
detained in the Bangkok IDC when she was eight years old. Two years later, when
Human Rights Watch interviewed her, she vividly remembered a particular
incident: “They [the guards] hit a woman who was pregnant. She was
playing cards. I was with my mom, about to go to sleep. I heard a scream.”[195]

Some children ceased to be
afraid and started to see the guards’ violence as normal. Nhean P. said
he had been detained in the Bangkok IDC, and deported back to Cambodia three
times between the ages of seven and twelve. He told us that “when someone
does something wrong, the guards hit people. Like if those people fight... I
think that’s normal.”[196]

Human Rights Watch received
some reports of children themselves receiving blows, including in one case from
a guard. Veata said that a guard at the Bangkok IDC slapped her in the face
when she was eight.[197]
Arpana B., a 31-year-old Sri Lankan woman who was pregnant at the time of her
detention in the Bangkok IDC in 2011 and who had a small daughter with her,
told Human Rights Watch: “One of the detainees beat my daughter. He was
crazy. There was no guard, no police to help us.”[198]

The immigration detention
system has no comprehensive regulations governing staff behavior, nor
disciplinary or punitive measures for immigration staff who violate
migrants’ rights.[199]
We requested, on multiple occasions, information from the Office of the Prime
Minister, the Police Immigration Division, and the ambassadors to the US and to
the UN in Geneva and in New York regarding procedures regulating staff behavior
or providing accountability for abuse or other violations of migrants’
rights. Although we received a letter from the office of the ambassador to the
UN in Geneva, acknowledging receipt of our letter, the office did not provide
any answers to the questions we raised.

Abusive Conditions in
Other Immigration Detention Centers

While this report does not
offer a comprehensive survey of all facilities used to detain migrant children,
Human Rights Watch received reports of problematic conditions in a number of
other IDCs around the country in addition to the Bangkok IDC, including in
Phang Nga, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Nong Khai, and Mae Sot.

Gross overcrowding led to
appalling conditions at the Phang Nga IDC in 2013, when the Thai government
detained hundreds of ethnic Rohingya refugees, including unaccompanied
children. Television footage from ITN showed some 280 men and boys detained in
the Phang Nga facility in two cells resembling large cages, each designed to
hold only 15 men, with barely enough room to sit. Some suffered swollen feet
and withered leg muscles. In July 2013, men reported they had not been let out
of the cells in five months.[200]

In response to international
pressure to protect a large influx of Rohingya migrants in 2013, the Thai
government made some efforts to separate Rohingya migrant children and place
them in closed shelters instead of IDCs. However, Human Rights Watch found that
the government failed to adequately screen
to identify children.[201]

Children, including unaccompanied migrant children, were among the Rohingya
migrants from Burma held in the immigration detention centers. Not only should
children not be kept in such conditions, but detaining them alongside unrelated
adults violates international law.

Hakim A., a 12-year-old unaccompanied Rohingya boy, told Human Rights Watch
that he was detained at the Phang Nga Immigration Detention Center in June
2013: “I was put in the same room with other Rohingya. But I just went by
myself in the corner of the room. I didn’t know anybody there…
It’s not a good place: the toilet’s right here, you live right
here, you eat right here. It’s all very close.”[202]

Human Rights Watch’s
visits to the Ranong IDC and the Samut Sakhon IDC in July 2013 raised further
concerns about the conditions of the facilities. Our visual observation of the
women’s cell in the Ranong IDC showed that the areas around the toilets
were filthy, with the tiles covered in black dirt. The 10 or so women held
there had only thin rubber mats to sleep on.

An immigration officer on duty
at the Samut Sakhon IDC told Human Rights Watch that he had concerns about the
conditions for children in the facility, which included temporary cells less
well constructed than those in other IDCs he had worked in. For instance, he
said, “The toilet needs to be improved, the cleaning. I see that
it’s not really comfortable when they need to clean themselves... I’m
concerned for the girls, no privacy to wash.” The officer said that
children who passed through the facility—typically for a few days or a
week—had no sleeping mats and slept on the floor.[203]

Human Rights Watch has
documented problems in IDCs going back for more than five years.[204]
For instance, 158 Lao Hmong recognized as “persons of concern” to
UNHCR were held for three years in the Nong Khai IDC before being deported to
Laos in December 2009; six babies were born in detention.[205]
Several detainees at Nong Khai IDC in 2009 passed information to Human Rights
Watch that their rooms had no windows, no light, and no beds.[206]
Rice rations were meager and of poor quality, supplemented by local residents
who brought or sold them food.[207]

One of the Lao Hmong detainees
told Human Rights Watch in September 2008:

There is not enough place to
sleep … it is very hot. Some of us have to take off our clothes….
If the water is working, we drink from the water pipe in the toilet. If it is
broken, the officials bring us water from the outside. This water is not very
clean and people get sick…. So we have no choice, we have to stay in the
darkness and we cannot use the toilet for many hours because of the very bad
smell and the heat inside.[208]

Rosa H., a refugee from a
southeast Asian country, was held in the Chiang Mai IDC for three months in
2010 with a friend and her friend’s two children, aged six and eight at
the time. She said:

It was very, very dirty. The
floor was made from wood….There was no air coming in at all. The wood was
broken and water came in. There were lots of insects, and cockroaches, and rats
– the rats were as wide around as this [indicating the circumference of
her upper arm.] It was very dirty, smelly, stinky, with… no air. We
didn’t have mattresses, we didn’t have anything…. We
didn’t have water, no shower. When I was sleeping, a big rat bit my face,
I had a sore. And we had sores, I had sores all over my body from not washing.
The children slept with us. They got sick.[209]

Linda Y. was held in the
Chiang Rai IDC with her two children for two weeks in 2010 before they were all
transferred to another facility. She said, “We couldn’t sleep
because water came in from the hole in the roof, the floor was wet.”[210]

Human Rights Watch interviews
in 2011 with migrants who had been held at the Mae Sot IDC raised similar
concerns about the quality of facilities there. For example, Moe Moe, a
28-year-old woman from Arakan State in Burma, spent seven days in the Mae Sot
IDC: “We had to share a few blankets and mattresses, not enough for all
the people.... The IDC had a very bad smell from the toilet… the Thai
police [immigration officials] provided no food… for seven days.”[211]

Abusive Conditions in
Police Lock-ups

Children held in police
stations also reported worrisome conditions. Mai M., a Burmese girl, was 15
when she was detained for a little over two weeks in a police station outside
Bangkok in December 2011. She said, “There was nothing. No pillows, no
mattresses. We just slept on the floor, a [tiled] floor... There was no soap.
We just wore the same clothes the whole time… it was always very packed
and we had to sleep lined up side-by-side. The toilet was inside this room,
with nothing separating.”[212]

Saw Bway, from Burma, was 17
when he was arrested during a raid on the prawn factory where he worked. He
said he was initially taken to a shelter for boys, and then sent to an
overcrowded police station in Samut Sakhon for several nights in preparation
for deportation to Burma. “There was no space to lie down or stretch out,”
he said. “You couldn’t bend your knees.”[213]

Kah S. was 17 when he was held
in a police lock-up in Chiang Mai for 25 days. Despite being in a room with
approximately 70 migrants, he said there was “only one small bowl for
washing… nobody cleaned it, nobody gave us cleaning products.”[214]
They had no mattresses, said Kah. “We would sleep on the floor, we would
lie very close, we had to because it became very crowded.”[215]

Htee Yaw, a Burmese man living
in Chiang Mai, told us his brother was arrested when he was 17 years old, in
2012. Htee Yaw went to visit him at the police lock-up: “About 50 men
were there, some men, some my brother’s age…. From the visiting
room I could see inside. It was smelly, crowded, without good facilities and
without enough blankets.”[216]

IV. Alternatives to Detention

Detention
is Thailand’s default option for irregular migrants, including children.
Every year thousands of children are detained in conditions that put them at
great risk of physical, psychological, and developmental harm. Yet immigration
detention is not only abusive, it is also unnecessary. Thailand’s own
National Subcommittee on Human Rights, Statelessness, Migration and Displaced
Persons (under the National Human Rights Commission) has detailed the harm
immigration detention has on children and suggested alternative reception
arrangements for undocumented families.[217]

Alternatives
to immigration detention are used successfully in a number of other countries. Such
alternative measures focus on facilitating the resolution of immigration and
asylum claims within community settings, thus preserving children’s right
to liberty. There are a number of alternatives to detention available to
Thailand, which, if implemented, would not only prevent the abusive and
unnecessary immigration detention of children, but could also make
Thailand’s immigration system less costly, more humane, and more
efficient.

Thailand’s Limited
Recognition of Children’s Right to Liberty

In recent
years, Thailand has undertaken two small pilot programs that may indicate some
willingness to shift from the default position of detention. However, the
programs affect at most a few hundred of the thousands of children detained and
apply only to very narrow categories.

Beginning
in 2011, a limited bail program allowed for the release from the Bangkok Immigration
Detention Center (IDC) of slightly more than 100 refugees (children and their
families), the majority of whom had been cleared for resettlement to a third
country. Secondly, in 2013, after permitting 2,055 Rohingya
migrants to enter the country, the government separated families, sending women
and younger children to shelters run by the Ministry of Social Development and
Human Security (MSDHS), while adult men and some male children, including
unaccompanied boys, were sent to IDCs. Much can be done
to improve on these models and to expand efforts to move children out of
detention.

The
government defends its extensive and costly detention network by claiming that
irregular migrants pose a risk to national security,[218]
that detention acts as a deterrent to those who seek to migrate irregularly,[219]
and that detention of irregular migrant children is somehow protective of the children’s
interests.[220]

Thailand
allowed a small number of recognized refugees, most cleared for resettlement,
and very occasionally, asylum seekers, to leave the Bangkok IDC. The fee set
was very high for people in their position: 50,000 baht ($1,700) per person.[221]
Families would need to raise that amount for each individual member. Most
detained families could not do that and instead relied on external donors. In
addition, each “bailee” needed a guarantor, typically provided by
an NGO. (In the limited instances where bail has been used, different NGOs in
Thailand served as guarantors for separate groups of bailees). With complicated
and unclear bureaucratic rules and no clear pattern for releasing children and
their families, Thailand’s bail program, according to UNHCR, offers only “a
very limited remedy to immigration detention.”[222]

Invoking the use of shelters
for migrant children can be seen as a positive step, because open shelters can
provide appropriate conditions for children. Yet in relation to the Rohingya
cases in Thailand in 2013, there were serious flaws in the use of shelters as
an alternative to detention. First, families were separated, and some children,
including unaccompanied children, were left in detention. Unaccompanied
children should never be detained.[223]
All immigration decisions should be taken in the child’s best interest,
and children have the right to family unity. Effective alternatives to
detention should prioritize the maintenance of family unity. In this example,
moving intact families, including parents of both genders, to shelters would
have been a better option.

A second problem with the use
of MSDHS shelters for Rohingya in 2013 was that those shelters were closed;
they effectively became places of detention, albeit with better conditions than
the IDCs. All Rohingya at government shelters interviewed by Human Rights Watch
said they were not permitted to leave the facilities. Service providers,
including Thai government officials, confirmed this. The Thai government, which
refuses to consider Rohingya asylum claims, made no plans to regularize
detainees’ immigration status. This left the Rohyinga essentially
forcibly confined in shelters they were not allowed to leave (though many did
escape), and thus constituted a form of indefinite detention. Migrant families
held in shelters should be able to move freely.

Thailand should place
asylum-seeking children and their families, like this group of Rohingya, in
open shelters with guaranteed freedom of movement, and provide children access
to education.

SuccessfulUse of
Alternatives to Detention Elsewhere

Anxiety
over irregular migration is not unique to Thailand. Many countries are now
coming to realize, however, that they are able to manage migration concerns
without the high financial and human costs that detention incurs.[224]

For
example, the Philippine government operates a recognizance release system
(albeit in a context where refugees are recognized by the government).
Refugees, asylum seekers, and vulnerable migrants are issued with appropriate
documentation and released on the condition that they comply with the refugee
status determination process,[225]
or periodically renew their registration with the Department of Justice.[226]
Children in immigration detention are “released as a matter of course
following referral to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, who…
provide social work, shelter and healthcare services” and can act as
responsible guardians for unaccompanied or separated children.[227]
According to UNHCR, “the Philippines’ system is an example of one
that does not regard detention as the norm, but has managed to function well
for many years on the basis of open reception arrangements.”[228]

Since
2008, Belgium has operated a network of “Family Identification and Return
Units,” also known as “Return Houses,” whichhave
been identified as best practice by alternatives to detention experts.[229]
These return houses, typically used during deportation, consist of basic
temporary accommodation units for undocumented families. Upon entering a return
house, families are allocated a case-worker, known as a coach, who works with
them and the authorities to resolve their immigration cases, provide food
vouchers, and ensure that families abide by the conditions of the program.[230]
Between October 2008 and November 2011, 249 families with a total of 452
children have been accommodated for an average of 24 days in return houses.[231]
Compliance rates (people completing the program) fluctuate between 75 and 80
percent,[232]
and although comparative figures for detention are not published, the director
of Belgium’s agency for the reception of asylum seekers has confirmed
that return houses are cheaper than the detention of families.[233]

The
success of the return houses has been explained by the early access to free
legal advice, transparent communication, and trust between families and “coaches”,
which characterizes the program.[234]
Other shared elements of successful alternatives to detention such as this
include the provision of adequate material support and a case management system
that keeps migrants informed at every stage of the process of status
resolution.[235]

In
Toronto, Canada, a government-funded charitable organization called the Toronto
Bail Program was established to assist migrants to meet the financial and
social conditions of the bail program. While in the program, individuals abide
by strict requirements including reporting to Toronto Bail Program offices
twice weekly, social counselling, and frequent unannounced visits.[236] In
return, the program provides housing and financial support, and assistance to
navigate Canada’s asylum and social welfare systems.[237]
The Toronto Bail Program has achieved impressive compliance rates. In 2009-2010,
of the 250 to 275 individuals released to the Toronto Bail Program, less than 4
percent absconded, and since then compliance rates have improved further.[238]
The program has also made significant savings for the Canadian government.
Whereas detention costs US$163 per person per day, the cost to the state of the
Toronto Bail Program is $9 to 11 per person per day—a saving of around $152
per person per day.[239]

For
bail programs to play an efficient role in preventing unnecessary immigration
detention, bail must be set at levels appropriate to the individual’s
financial situation (and refugees and asylum seekers should be released without
bail).[240]
Funds, such as the Toronto Bail Program, should be created and made available
to detainees who cannot otherwise access bail programs. As the Toronto Bail
Program example shows, government support for such release funds can prove to
be very cost-effective.

Successful
alternatives to detention, such as the recognizance release program in the
Philippines, are founded on the dignity of the individual migrant, refugee or
asylum seeker. Recognisance release is a particularly effective and sustainable
alternative to detention due to the self-reliance it engenders. Thailand should
look to the example set by the Philippines, a fellow ASEAN state, when
reforming its immigration and asylum procedures.

A Five-Step Process to
Avoid Detention of Children

The International
Detention Coalition, an association of over 250 NGOs and individuals in more
than 50 countries working to protect the rights of migrants in immigration
detention, proposes a five-step process for countries to avoid the detention
of children. First, they advocate for governments to adopt a presumption
against the detention of children, prior to any migrants’ arrivals.
Next, when a migrant child arrives, with or without their family, the
authorities should screen the individual to determine their age, allocate a
case worker, and place the child (and family) into a community setting.
Third, the case manager works with the child or family to resolve the
individual migration case (an incentive to comply with the program). Fourth,
the child or family’s placement in an alternative to detention is
reviewed periodically, and an assessment is made of the risk of the child or
family absconding prior to departure. Finally, the child or family is granted
the right to stay, or deported.[241]

V. Recommendations

To the Thai Government

Enact legislation and implement
policies to expeditiously end the immigration detention of children consistent
with the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child.

Adopt alternatives to
detention, including supervised release and open centers, that fulfill the best
interests of the child and allow children to remain with their family members
or guardians in non-custodial, community-based settings while their immigration
status is being resolved.

Until children are no longer
detained, ensure that their detention is neither arbitrary nor indefinite, and
that they and their families are able to challenge their detention in a timely
manner.

Drastically improve conditions
in immigration detention centers and any other facilities that hold migrant
children to meet international standards, including by providing access to
adequate education and health care, and maintaining family unity.

Ensure that guardianship for
unaccompanied and separated children is vested in the Ministry of Social
Development and Human Security.

Immediately release from IDC
detention all refugees recognized by the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees.

Immediately discontinue
policies requiring migrants to meet the cost of their detention or deportation;
never detain irregular migrants indefinitely for the purpose of compelling them
or their families to pay for their own deportation.

Sign and ratify the 1951
Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and the Convention on the Protection
of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

Remove Thailand’s
reservation to article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
concerning child refugees.

To the Parliament

Amend the 2009 Immigration Act
to ensure that children are not detained simply for reasons of their
immigration status.

Enact a law that establishes
criteria and procedures for recognizing refugee status and providing asylum and
other forms of protection, in line with international legal standards.

Until a refugee law is
enacted, amend the 2009 Immigration Act to authorize persons that UNHCR
designates as a “person of concern” to stay legally in Thailand
without being threatened with arrest and detention while they await a status
determination or a durable solution for those found to be in need of
international protection.

To the Police Immigration Division

Implement, in conjunction with
the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and relevant civil
society organizations, (alternatives to detention such as open shelters and
conditional release programs that prioritize the child’s best interests
and family unity, and ensure that children are referred to the Ministry of
Social Development and Human Security for appropriate care.

Immediately bring detention
conditions in line with international standards, including standards relating
to overcrowding, water and sanitation, nutrition, and access to recreation,
among others.

Before reforms are enacted to
ensure migrant children are no longer detained, ensure that families are kept
together as long as it is in the child’s best interest. In the rare
instances when children are separated from family members, ensure that they
have routine opportunities to visit with those family members.

Immediately cease detaining
children with unrelated adults.

Provide appropriate, age-specific
education to all children of compulsory primary education age being held in
detention facilities, and make secondary education available and accessible to
every child.

Take appropriate measures to
ensure that children are not subjected to violence or placed in situations
where they witness violence in detention facilities.

Ensure that migrants in
detention have the means to communicate with family members, UNHCR, and legal
representatives.

To the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security

Implement, in conjunction with
the Immigration Division, alternatives to detention such as open shelters and
conditional release programs that prioritize the child’s best interests
and family unity. Adopt practices that allow children to remain with family
members and/or guardians if they are present in the country.

Ensure that guardianship for
unaccompanied and separated children is vested in the Ministry of Social
Development and Human Security.

To the Ministry of
Interior

Adopt and publicize a policy
that ends detention of children for reasons of their immigration status, and
order immigration police to faithfully implement that policy.

Direct police and immigration
officers not to arrest on immigration enforcement grounds asylum seekers who have
been issued “person of concern” certificates issued by UNHCR.

Provide budgetary resources to
upgrade immigration detention facilities in order to bring conditions into line
with international standards.

To the National Human Rights
Commission of Thailand (NHRCT)

Closely monitor immigration detention
facilities, including by making regular visits to IDC facilities around the
country to ensure adequate conditions for children being held in immigration
detention.

Respond to this report by
conducting public hearings on the detention of children in IDC facilities and
demand government authorities articulate how they will address the issues
raised by this report, and the NHRCT’s own investigations and findings.

Urge the Royal Thai government
to revise the 2009 Immigration Act to ensure that children are not detained for
reasons of their immigration status.

To the UN Resident Coordination and UN Country Team

Prioritize advocacy action to
end arbitrary detention, including in immigration detention facilities, and
publicly communicate concerns about arbitrary detention, and the failure of
current laws and regulations to meet international standards, to the Thai
authorities on a continuous basis.

Publicly call upon the Thai
government to end detention of all children for reasons of their immigration
status.

Support UN agency efforts to
comprehensively address the issue of children in detention in Thailand through
appropriate advocacy and services.

To UNHCR

Continue to urge the Thai government
to cease detaining children solely for reasons of their immigration status.

Speed up refugee status
determination in Thailand, especially for detainees.

Ensure that UNHCR officials
intervene promptly to seek the immediate release of refugees and asylum seekers
when they are arrested.

Educate Thai government
authorities on their obligations to respect the status of asylum seekers and
not detain asylum seekers or refugees recognized by UNHCR.

To the International
Organization for Migration (IOM)

Monitor conditions of
confinement for all asylum seekers and children in immigration detention
facilities, and report issues and concerns to all appropriate Thai government
officials including, but not limited to, Thailand’s Immigration Division.

Urge the Immigration Division
to improve conditions of detention and bring them into compliance with
international human rights standards.

To UNICEF

Urge the Thai government to
end the detention of migrant children, and work closely with other UN agencies
to make this a priority issue for the UN Country Team.

Urge the Thai government to
make issues affecting migrant children, including refugee and asylum-seeking
children, a priority in Thailand’s child protection programs and
activities, and use UNICEF’s programming in Thailand to assist these
efforts.

To the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

Make children’s rights a
priority in immigration enforcement, including by providing specialized
protection for unaccompanied migrant children, and by urging states to cease
the detention of migrant children.

Request that the ASEAN
Commission for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Women and Children
(ACWC) conduct immediate research on detention of children in immigration
facilities, and develop recommendations on best practices to end such detention
practices.

Prioritize ending immigration
detention of children in formal discussions at the Bali Process on People
Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons, and Related Transnational Crime.

To Donor and Resettlement
Governments

Urge the Thai government to
cease the detention of children solely for reasons of immigration status.

Facilitate and provide support
for the development of alternatives to detention, including open reception
centers and conditional release programs for migrant children and their
families.

Encourage the development of
refugee law in Thailand according to international standards.

Call on the Thai government to
cease detaining migrants who are UNHCR “persons of concern.”

Acknowledgments

Research for this report was primarily
conducted between June and October 2013, by Alice Farmer, children rights researcher
at Human Rights Watch, who wrote the report. Additional research was
conducted by Shaivalini Parmar, senior associate in the Asia Division; Zama
Coursen-Neff, director of the Children’s Rights Division; Bill Frelick,
director of the Refugee Rights Program; and Phil Robertson, deputy director of
the Asia Division.

Significant research
assistance was provided by Laura Schulke, senior associate in the
Children’s Rights Division, and Patrick Phongsathorn, intern in the
Children’s Rights Division. Anne Stotler, intern in the Children’s
Rights Division, and Beneva Davies, associate in the Children’s Rights
Division, provided research and production assistance. Kathy Mills and Fitzroy
Hepkins provided production assistance.

Human Rights Watch is grateful
to the individuals who shared their personal stories, as well as all the
officials, service providers, and experts who agreed to be interviewed. We
thank all the organizations and individuals who supported this work,
facilitated interviews, reviewed sections, and provided invaluable insight.

[9]
A 2010 Human Rights Watch report, From the
Tiger to the Crocodile: Abuse of Migrant Workers in Thailand,
details the broad range of rights abuses faced by migrant workers from Burma,
Laos, and Cambodia. They may be effectively bonded to their employers; police,
military, and immigration officers threaten, physically harm, and extort
migrant workers with impunity; migrants are frequently arrested and detained
without fair process and subject to abuse in detention; and when migrant
workers face abusive employers or common crime, Thai authorities are very
reluctant to investigate and are sometimes complicit. Human Rights Watch, From the Tiger to the Crocodile: Abuse of Migrant
Workers in Thailand, February 2010,
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/thailand0912.pdf.

[14]Royal
Thai Government, Announcement of the National Council for Peace and Order No.
67/2557, Temporary measures in addressing migrant workers, June 16, 2014,
http://www.thaigov.go.th/en/announcement-2/item/84074-id84074.html, (accessed
July 7, 2014).

[15]
Royal Thai Government, Announcement of the National Council
for Peace and Order No. 70/2557, Interim Measures in solving the problem of
migrant workers and human trafficking, June 25, 2014, http://www.thaigov.go.th/en/announcement-2/item/84207-84207.html
, (accessed July 7, 2014).

[23]
The 2005 Cabinet Resolution on Education for Unregistered Persons guarantees
the right to education of children without legal immigration status in
Thailand, and allows these children to enroll in government schools. Education
is compulsory for both Thai and migrant children until age 15. In 2012, the Ministry of Education’s
Ministerial Regulation on Migrant Learning Centers legalized the
provision of basic education through migrant learning centers run by nongovernmental organizations or
individuals. For more information, see: “Right to Education for migrants, refugees and asylum
seekers,” Social Division,
Department of International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom
of Thailand, http://www.mfa.go.th/humanrights/implementation-of-un-resolutions/72-right-to-education-for-migrants-refugees-and-asylum-seekers; “Thailand:
2012 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor,” United States
Department of Labor.

[28]
Human Rights Watch, "All You Can Do is Pray”: Crimes Against
Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan
State, April 2013, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray-0.

[33]
According to Thailand’s Nationality Act, children born in Thailand after
February 26, 1992 do not acquire Thai nationality at birth if either or both of
their parents has entered Thailand “without permission under the law on immigration”
or has only temporary permission to stay in Thailand (such as a migrant worker
permit). Any child born in Thailand who does not acquire Thai citizenship at
birth is considered an irregular migrant. For more information, see: Nattha Keenapan, “The
stateless classroom,” UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/thailand/reallives_10445.html;
Nationality Act, B.E. 2508, amended by Acts B.E. 2535No. 2 and 3, (1992) Ch. 1 § 7(2).

[34]
Human Rights Watch, Ad Hoc and Inadequate.
Starting in January 2004, the Thai government stopped allowing UNHCR to conduct
refugee status determination interviews for Burmese refugees and directed that
all Burmese refugees should live in the Thai-Burma border camps. The government
refused to screen or register all but a small fraction of the new arrivals
between 2004 and 2011, leaving tens of thousands of people unregistered and
thus regarded as illegal. Ibid.,
pp. 1-2. Since 2011, the government has slightly reopened the admission
procedure for certain categories of persons, such as unregistered members of
registered families who are in the resettlement pipeline.

[38]“Ethnic cleansing,” though not a formal legal term,
has been defined as a purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to
remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another
ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. In October
2012, Buddhist Arakanese political and religious leaders and
ordinary citizens organized attacks against Rohingya and Kaman Muslim
communities in Arakan State. The evidence indicates that they intended to drive
Muslims from the state or at least relocate them from areas in which they had
been residing – particularly from areas shared with the majority Buddhist
population. Rohingya men, women, and children were killed, some were buried in
mass graves, and their villages and neighborhoods were razed. In many cases the
state security forces stood aside during attacks or directly supported the
assailants. The Burmese government has taken no serious action since this
violence. For more information, see: Thailand: Protect Rohingya Boat
Children, Human Rights Watch news release, January 6, 2014,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/01/06/thailand-protect-rohingya-boat-children;
Human Rights Watch, All You Can Do is Pray:
Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in
Burma’s Arakan State, April 2013.

[40]
UNHCR helps resettle recognized refugees from Thailand and other
refugee-receiving countries to third countries when it is the only safe and viable durable solution available. Only a small number of
third countries welcome refugees. Any refugee interested in resettlement can apply to UNHCR. UNHCR, rather than the
refugees, decides the country to which each case is submitted, and that country
decides whether to accept the refugee for resettlement. For more information,
see: “Resettlement,” UNHCR, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/4a16b1676.html; “Third Country Refugee Resettlement Information,” UNHCR, http://reliefweb.int/report/nepal/third-country-refugee-resettlement-information-refugees-bhutan-living-nepal.

[54]Ahmadis are members of the Ahmadiyya community, a religious
minority in Pakistan with an estimated two million members in Pakistan. At
least 87 Ahmadis, including children, were charged under various provisions of
the country’s Blasphemy Law in 2009. Many face violence and persecution
in Pakistan. As a result, thousands of Ahmadis have fled Pakistan to seek
asylum. For more information, see: Pakistan: Massacre of
Minority Ahmadis, Human Rights Watch news release, June 1, 2010,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/06/01/pakistan-massacre-minority-ahmadis.

[62]
Royal Thai Government, Order of the Prime Minister’s Office No. 125/2553,
Re: Establishment of a Special Centre to Suppress, Arrest and Prosecute Alien
Workers Who Are Working Underground, June 2, 2010.

[63]
Mekong Migration Network, No Choice in the Matter: Migrants’ Experiences
of Arrest, Detention and Deportation, July 2013, p. 27.

[64]
"Hidden Migrant Children – Is the Government prepared to look after
them?" Thai Rath (Bangkok),
September 28, 2013, https://www.thairath.co.th/content/eco/372506 (accessed
January 15, 2014).

[71]
See, e.g., Human Rights Watch interview with Ma Swe, Chiang Mai, July 12, 2013
(Ma Swe was arrested in 2005; she reports that she was 25 and was held at
Chiang Mai Women’s Prison for several nights with her 17-year-old female
friend); Human Rights Watch group interview with Kah S., Chiang Mai, July 13,
2013.

[72]
Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 6, para. 61.

[77]
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Report of the 2012 Day of General
Discussion on the Rights of All Children in the Context of International
Migration, February 2013, www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/discussion2012/2012CRC_DGD-Childrens_Rights_InternationalMigration.pdf
(accessed July 15, 2013) para 78.

[80]
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U.N.T.S. 150, entered into
force April 22, 1954, art. 26. Although Thailand is not a party to the 1951
Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, it is a member of UNHCR’s
Executive Committee, which is open to states “with a demonstrated
interest in, and devotion to, the solution of the refugee problem.”
(United Nations Economic and Social Council, Establishment of the Executive
Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, E/RES/672 (XXV) (1958), http://www.unhcr.org/3ae69eecc.html (accessed
January 31, 2014)). As such, it should demonstrate respect for the
Convention and UNHCR guidelines.

[81]
UNHCR, Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards relating to the
Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention, 2012,
www.unhcr.org/505b10ee9.html (accessed January 31, 2014).

[86]
In 1999, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention developed criteria for
determining whether the deprivation of liberty of migrants and asylum seekers
is arbitrary. The principles mandate that a migrant or asylum seeker placed in
custody “must be brought promptly before a judge or other
authority,” and that decisions regarding detention must be founded on
criteria established by law. Moreover, migrants and asylum seekers in detention
must be notified in writing—in a language they understand—of the
grounds for detention and that remedy may be sought from a judicial authority
empowered to decide promptly on the lawfulness of detention and to order
release if appropriate. UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention, E/CN.4/2000/4, December 28, 1999, Annex II,
Deliberation No. 5, Situation Regarding Immigrants and Asylum Seekers.

[87]
UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention, A/HRC/16/47, January 17, 2011, Annex III,,
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A-HRC-16-47.pdf
(accessed January 31, 2014).

[88]
UNHCR, Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards relating to the
Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention 2012,
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/503489533b8.html (accessed

[118]
“Life in IDC: Written by an African refugee who was being resettled to
the USA about his experiences in the Bangkok Immigration Detention
Centre,” diary of Diederik O. (pseudonym), on file with Human Rights
Watch.

[121]
See, e.g., Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, United States Department
of Agriculture, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” 2012,
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/dietaryguidelines.htm (accessed January 20, 2014); Food and Agricultural Organization and World Health Organization,
“Living well with HIV/AIDS: A manual on nutritional care and support for
people living with HIV/AIDS,” 2002, http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4168e/y4168e00.HTM , pp. 13-18.

[123]
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, United States Department of
Agriculture, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” 2012, http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/dietaryguidelines.htm
(accessed January 20, 2014).

[124]
United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Standard
Minimum Rules), adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention
of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held at Geneva in 1955, and approved
by the Economic and Social Council by its resolution 663 C (XXIV) of July 31,
1957, and 2076 (LXII) of May 13, 1977, para. 20.

[125]
"Hidden Migrant Children – Is the Government prepared to look after
them?" Thai Rath (Bangkok),
September 28, 2013, https://www.thairath.co.th/content/eco/372506 (accessed
January 15, 2014).

[126]
WHO, “Forum on international migration and health in Thailand: status and
challenges to controlling TB,” Bangkok June 4-6, 2013.

[146]
"Hidden Migrant Children – Is the Government prepared to look after
them?" Thai Rath (Bangkok),
September 28, 2013, https://www.thairath.co.th/content/eco/372506 (accessed
January 15, 2014).

[147]
See generally, Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any
Form of Detention or Imprisonment, G.A. res. 43/173, annex, 43 U.N. GAOR Supp.
(No. 49) at 298, U.N. Doc. A/43/49 (1988).

[150]
As no other detainees in Thailand, including ordinary criminals, are required
to bear the costs of their detention, forcing immigration detainees, who by
definition are non-Thai citizens, to do so is tantamount to discriminatory
treatment. The committee that oversees the Convention for the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty to which Thailand is party, notes
that “any differential treatment based on citizenship or immigration
status will constitute discrimination if the criteria for such differentiation,
judged in the light of the objectives and purposes of the Convention, are not
applied pursuant to a legitimate aim, and are not proportional to the
achievement of this aim.” (Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, General Recommendation No. 30: Discrimination against
Non-Citizens, January 10, 2004; International Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), adopted December 21, 1965, GA Res.
2106, annex 20 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 14) at 47, U.N. Doc. A/6014 (1966), 660
U.N.T.S. 195,, entered into force January 4, 1969, acceded to by Thailand on
January 28, 2003.) Under this test, singling out immigration detainees as the
sole detainees who have to bear the costs of incarceration constitutes unlawful
discrimination. (The 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the
Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, reflects the
consensus that differential treatment for migrants in detention is not
acceptable. The Migrant Workers Convention provides that: “Migrant
workers and members of their families who are subjected to any form of
detention or imprisonment in accordance with the law in force in the State of
employment or in the State of transit shall enjoy the same rights as nationals
of those States who are in the same situation”; and “if a migrant
worker or a member of his or her family is detained for the purpose of
verifying any infraction of provisions related to migration, he or she shall
not bear any costs arising therefrom.” (International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families
(Migrant Workers Convention), adopted December 18, 1990, G.A. Res. 45/158,
annex, 45 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49A) at 262, U.N. Doc. A/45/49 (1990), entered
into force July 1, 2003 arts. 17(7) and (8)).

[154]
UNHCR, Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards relating to the
Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention, 2012,
www.unhcr.org/505b10ee9.html (accessed January 31, 2014) para 52.

[161]
“Life in IDC: Written by an African refugee who was being resettled to
the USA about his experiences in the Bangkok Immigration Detention
Centre,” diary of Diederik O. (pseudonym), on file with Human Rights
Watch.

[162]
“Life in IDC: Written by an African refugee who was being resettled to
the USA about his experiences in the Bangkok Immigration Detention
Centre,” diary of Diederik O. (pseudonym), on file with Human Rights
Watch.

[230]
These conditions include certain restrictions on freedom of movement and a
requirement that they stay overnight at the return houses. Jesuit Refugee
Service, “From Deprivation to Liberty: Alternatives to Detention in
Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom”, 2012, pp. 20-21.

[238]
UNHCR, “Back to Basics: The Right to Liberty and Security of Person and
‘Alternatives to Detention’ of Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, Stateless
Persons and Other Migrants,” April 2011,
http://www.unhcr.org/4dc949c49.pdf, p. 57.